A Dating Service to Die For
by Draconian Sorceress
Summary: Trapped in the offices of an online dating company, will these survivors meet their ideal match or die trying? Please R & R! Complete.
1. Trapped

_As the chaos outside their building unfolded around them, five people sat in horror, torn between the present, and how they came to be trapped in the offices of the match-making services..._

Emily groggily reached for her alarm clock, thinking about pressing the snooze button just one more time until she caught sight of the glowing red numerals. "Holy shit!" she shrieked when the numbers finally registered to her half-conscious brain, 8:00 am, she'd overslept again. Leaping from the jumbled pile of blankets that was her bed, she made a mad dash for the bathroom.

"Dammit!" she swore as she stubbed her toe in her haste to climb into the shower stall. "Please God don't let me be late again," she prayed silently. It was bad enough that she was stuck in a dead end job, worse yet, she worked at an online dating service for what she considered the socially inept, judging by the profiles some of their clients submitted anyway. She blamed her habitual oversleeping and subsequent tardiness on her job, claiming that it filled her with the need to meet her own 'Mr. Right' the old fashioned way, drunk in a bar.

After hurriedly dressing, she rushed back to the bathroom to douse her telltale bloodshot eyes with Visine before doing a quick make-up job, just enough to make her look little bit less like the walking dead, she thought bitterly. In her haste, she barely caught the news report from her still blaring alarm clock.

"_Reports of civil unrest and unprecedented acts of violence are sweeping the nation," the disembodied voice said over the radio. "Locally, hospitals are reporting an influx of patients reporting unprovoked attacks on their persons, and exhibiting what one hospital insider described as being human bi..._"

"Yea, yea, yea, civil unrest, blah blah blah," muttered Emily as she turned off the radio on her way out of the room. She frantically searched for her car keys, until she remembered that they lay on the battered, old end table she'd placed beside her front door. Snatching them up, she carefully locked her front door and headed for the stairwell. There, she raced down the four flights of steps to street level, bursting out the door and onto the street. As she searched the parking spots in front of her apartment building for her car, she had a bad habit of forgetting where she parked, she noticed a strange absence of people in the street. Shaking off the eerie feeling, she quickly ran towards her ancient SAAB parked on the opposite side of the street, an angry driver honking his horn at her when she darted in front of him.

She paused just long enough to flip off the driver, before unlocking her car door and climbing inside. Just as she settled herself in the seat, she caught sight of a piece of paper wedged beneath her windshield wiper. "Shit, not again," she said, climbing half out of the car and wrenching the paper out from beneath the wiper. Barely glancing at it, she recognized it as yet another parking ticket. Groaning, she stuffed it inside the glove compartment along with a host of others she'd received in the past few weeks. "Gotta take care of those," she murmured as she slammed the little car into gear and pulled out into the nearly empty street. As she sped down the road, she flipped through her favorite radio stations looking for some decent driving music. Instead of music though, every station had the obligatory news reporter talking about civil unrest. Frustrated, she turned off the radio, humming to herself as she navigated her way through the streets towards her office. For some reason she couldn't get that old Gloria Gaynor song 'I Will Survive' out of her head. "Stupid song," she muttered as she pulled into the underground parking garage of her building. Checking her watch while she waited for the gate to go up, she realized she'd make it with about five minutes to spare today, in her mind a good sign.

Instead though, she found a nasty surprise waiting for her, attached to her timecard with a paperclip. After hitting the time clock and punching in, she slowly opened the letter, figuring it was going to be yet another change to the employee handbook, she scanned through it. "What the fuck," she shrieked, reading through the first paragraph again.

"Due to changes with our computer system the board of directors has ascertained it will be in the company's best interests to downsize unneeded support staff in the coming months. Effective the 1st of June your employment with will be terminated," she read aloud, as if vocalizing the words would make them any less true.

"I'm being downsized, fucking downsized," she said angrily, to no one in particular. She earned a few strange looks from passersby, rushing back towards the parking area, but nothing more.

Sighing as she walked into cubicle land, she decided the first course of action was to seek out a fresh cup of coffee. Hastily depositing her purse in one of the drawers of her desk as she passed her cubicle, she made a beeline to the breakroom. Lost in thoughts of how she could possibly win her job back, she was halfway to the breakroom before she realized that the usually boisterous office was uncharacteristically quiet. Glancing around, she was surprised to see many of the cubes around her were vacant, including that of her supervisor. Pondering this turn of events, she was caught off guard by a group of people bursting forth from the breakroom just as she reached the door.

"I'm just going home, packing up the kids and heading up north to our vacation cottage, we'll ride things out there," a heavyset programmer, Emily thought his name was Phil, was declaring to someone she didn't recognize.

"Don't be silly, you heard what the announcer said, if there's no activity in your area the safest thing to do is just stay in your home and lock the doors," Phil's friend replied obstinately as the two of them nearly trampled her in their haste to leave.

"Troglodytes!" she called after them in disgust. She entered the room, heading straight for the coffee-maker, only to be met with the disappointing sight of an empty pot. Shaking her head, she went about the task of making a fresh pot, half-heartedly listening to the handful of people crammed around the small TV set on the other side of the room. She turned to join the others while she waited for it to brew.

"_Once again, the latest reports say that the area around the River Walk is no longer safe and there are reports of violence spreading throughout the heart of the city. Police are asking that people remain in their homes with the doors and windows locked if there is no apparent activity in their area. We will be broadcasting a listing of rescue stations which are going into operation around the city at this very moment, just as soon as the information becomes available. City officials are asking that citizens in areas of activity make their ways to the nearest rescue station_," the commentator was saying when Emily walked up to the rest of the group.

"So what's going on?" she asked, elbowing the guy standing next to her to get his attention.

He turned and gave her an incredulous look. "Haven't you been listening to the news this morning? People are rioting in the streets, just walking up to anyone and attacking them. And it's not just here, it's all over the country, maybe the world!"

"Right, this is probably just somebody's idea of an April Fool's Day prank, they're just a month late with it," she scoffed.

"Are you nuts!" he said sharply, drawing looks from others around them. "People are evacuating their homes, this is not someone's sick idea of a joke. I've even heard that people are starting to die from these attacks. There's even a network saying that people are out there biting each other. Biting!"

"Okay, I get it, this isn't a joke," Emily said, backing away from him. There was a wild look in his eyes, and spittle was beginning build up in the corners of his mouth. It was at that moment she realized that it was a guy named Chris from their accounting department. He was already a 'high-strung' person, all this crazy news obviously not helping him any. "Look, it's cool man," she told him placatingly. "I'm just gonna go fix myself a cup of coffee now," she said as she backed away.

"Coffee! At a time like this?" he demanded.

"Yea, it settles my nerves, maybe you should try a cup," she suggested. "But, I seriously recommend the de-caf for you," she blurted out before she could stop herself. He just continued to stare at her, as though she'd suddenly sprouted a second head or something. Warily, she turned away from him just enough to fix her coffee, with lots of cream and sugar, and slink towards the door with it.

"Down-sized by computers and psychotic co-workers, this day can't get any worse," she told herself as she returned to her desk and got to work. Throughout the next half hour, she periodically heard people leaving, all voicing the same thing, the violence was spreading. Tuning them out, she continued to work, running background checks on potential customers. She was so focused on what she was doing she nearly jumped from her seat when her best friend, Barry, suddenly bounded into her cubicle.

"Girl, just what in the hell do you think you're doing here?" he asked.

"Um, working, duh! What's it look like?" she asked.

"I see that you're working, the question is why? Aren't you paying attention to what's going on out there?"

"Yea, I heard the news when I came in, chaos in the Mid-West, typical media exaggeration," she replied.

"Honey, this ain't no exaggeration. Take a look outside, I think we should get out of here," he said, gesturing towards the exit.

"Barry, I can't afford to miss a day of work, I just got a termination letter this morning, I'm out of a job in a month and a half," she said.

"Got news for you sweetie, we're all out of jobs as of today, come over here and look," he ordered, walking through the cubicle maze to the nearest window.

"All right, I'm coming," she said,figuring she'd never get any work done until she did what he wanted. When she reached the window, she couldn't hide her amazement over the changes that had occurred in the short hour she'd been at the office. The squat four-story building that housed their offices on its top floor, a new department store that filled the second and third floors, scheduled for its grand opening in another week, and a first floor that housed a trendy mix of boutiques and a hole-in-the wall Italian restaurant, now lay in the middle of an apparent war zone. "Holy shit," she breathed.

The street in front of the building crammed full of cars, trying to make it out to the expressways in an effort to flee a city gone wild. Some people were literally driving onto the sidewalks or plowing into other vehicles in their desperation to escape. Others were abandoning their vehicles all together, walking over the tops of other cars in an attempt to flee on foot. In the midst of the chaos, looters were scavenging through stores. While Emily and Barry watched, one of the looters, he looked like a teenager struggling to carry a TV from the smashed out front of an electronics store was suddenly surrounded by a pack of people.

"At least there are some people out there still trying to preserve law and order," Barry exclaimed. Then, to the duo's utter dismay, the pack suddenly charged the boy, who screamed, dropped theTVand tried to run. They tackled him to the ground and literally tore him to pieces, feasting upon his flesh.

"Oh my God, Barry, please tell me I didn't just see what I just saw," Emily said hoarsely.

"Okay, you didn't see what you just saw," he stammered, turning to face her. "But you know I'm lying, right?"

"Jesus, we gotta get out of here!" she yelped, groping for his hand and pulling them both away from the window.

"And go where Em?" he asked. "You just saw what's happening out there. Now I'm thinking that maybe we'll be safer here."

"We'd be sitting ducks here," she protested. "Those people could break in any minute, eat us just like they did that kid."

"You won't be any safer out there, it's suicide to try," rasped a voice from behind them. The two friends jumped, whirling about and saw a chubby, middle-aged blonde man standing there trembling. Blood was smeared across his forehead, and his once neatly pressed suit now hung in tatters. Emily's eyes widened as she recognized the man who'd left with Phil the programmera merehour before.

Without thinking, she blurted out, "Where's Phil?"

The man's trembling intensified and tears began to run down his cheeks. "They got him. He...he saved my life, stopped them when they tried to attack me, and I just abandoned him to those things," he sobbed, obviously overwhelmed with guilt.

"It's okay," Barry told him soothingly. "We've seen from the windows what those people can do, if they had hold of him, I doubt that there was anything you could have done to help him. Now, what's your name?"

"Jonathan, my name's Jonathan," he said, wiping at the tears on his cheeks.

"Nice to meet you Jonathan, I'm Barry, this here's Emily."

"Okay, if we're all done with our socializing boys, we need to figure out what we're gonna do before those things get in here," she told them stubbornly.

"They shouldn't get in, at least not right away," a deep male voice said from behind her.

"For the love of God you people gotta stop doing that to me!" she shrieked, leaping about a foot into the air. Behind her stood a tall, stocky black man clad in a tan security guard uniform stood. The name tag on his uniform read 'T. Johnson.' He was an older man, late forties, maybe early fifties judging from the streaks of gray that showed in his closely cropped hair.

"What makes you so sure of that, Mr. Johnson," Barry asked, squinting a little as he read the name plate.

"Thomas, you can call me Thomas. And as for safety, for one thing, I just came from the ground floor, was on my way back to the security offices when I heard your voices," the guard explained.

"That doesn'ttell uswhy you think we're safe?" Jonathan said, trying to sound tougher than he looked.

"If you'd have let me finish, I would have told you, I checked the front and back doors to the building. They're both locked up tight. The Italian place, they don't upon up until the lunch crowd, and I doubt anyone will show up for their shift.Now, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure we'reall that's left here," he told them.

"But what about the other entries? There's got to be more entries in a building this size," Emily said, waving her arms wide to emphasize.

"Not really," Thomas disagreed. "This is an old building, built in back in the twenties. They may have gutted the old first floor and turned it into a garage, but it's still old style architecture, only two main points of entry. There's the front entryway out to the street andthe rear one that leads into an alley,other than that,the remaining access areas are through the elevator from the parking garage and the fire-escape. That's it. The way I see it, the elevator is our main weakness right now."

Jonathan started rubbing his temples and pacing in a tight circle. At last he spoke. "There's got to be a way to disable the elevator, maybe we can wedge the doors open on one of the floors. What would that do?"

Thomas nodded. "It might work, nobody would be able to call for the elevator if the door was open. Question is what would we use?"

"I'm not really an electrician," Emily said hesitantly, "but couldn't we just short out the elevator? I remember one time when I was a kid, my uncle George tried re-wiring his house and it was weeks before anybody could get everything running again. Sorry," she said, looking sheepish, "It's probably a pretty dumb idea, I'm just babbling 'cause I'm scared."

"Nah, it's a good idea sweetheart, I think you might be right on the money with that," Thomas said. "In fact, it makes me thint that we should be able to get at it from the maintenance hatch, I think there's some kind of master shut-off switch for the thing that they use when they're working in on it."

"Okay then, I say our first order of business is getting that elevator turned off," Barry said. "Then we can work our way through the rest of the building, see if anyone else is still here, make sure that nobody got in while we've been standing around here with our thumbs up our asses." He gestured to the pistol strapped to Thomas' hip, "Are there any more of those around this place?"

"Yeah, all the security officers are assigned their own pieces and we're not allowed to take them home, obviously, it's not like we're real cops or something. Anyway, there's 9 more pistols over in the security office, couple rifles maybe. You know how to use one?"

"Me? No," Barry said, shaking his head in emphasis, before pointing at Emily. "But she does."

"Me too," Jonathan said nervously. "At least, I know how to handle a rifle that is, I used to go deer hunting when I was younger."

"Good enough for me," Thomas replied. "Now let's get to work."

It took them over an hour to take care of the elevator and search the top three floors, plus arm themselves from the security office. Slowly they made their way across the bottom floor, searching for any signs of life that they might have missed. The back door was solid steel with two locks, reasonably unlikely to be broken down too easily. The real threat was the main door, it's shatterproof glass would only hold for so long if any of the looters decided to try breaking in.

"We can use some of the tables and chair from the restaurant, make a barricade or something," suggested Emily, grasping the door handle as she spoke.

"Door's locked," Thomas started to say, starting in surprise when the door in question glided open smoothly.

"Oh really?" the girl said skeptically. "Are you sure you checked these doors before you came up and found us?"

"Well no, I guess I just assumed what with the lights out and everything that it was still locked up from the last night. It doesn't look like anything's been disturbed," he said defensively.

"Let's check it out," Jonathan said nervously, grasping the rifle he'd procured in the security office clumsily in his hands.

In the kitchen, they found a teenage girl, cowering on the floor behind one of the counters, crying softly. She was a waitress there at the restaurant, she'd come there that morning in search of the purse she'd forgotten the night before, getting trapped inside the building when the elevator quit working.

"What's your name?" Emily asked softly, kneeling beside the girl.

"Tara," she whispered.

"Well Tara, you're safe here," Emily said, trying to reassure her.

"No, we're trapped here," the girl whispered. "I tried, but there's no way out."

"It's safer in here than it is out on the street right now, Tara. You have to believe me, there are some very unfriendly people out there right now, you're safer staying inside right now until help comes. Guys, why don't you take care of the door, I'll handle this," Emily said.

"I can't stay here!" Tara blurted out after the others had left. "My family, they don't know where I am. They think I'm at school right now."

"We'll try to contact them, there arephones up in our office we can use, but right now I need you to come with me."

The two of them left the others to construct the barricade, and made their way back up to the office. Once there, they sat at the nearest desk, picking up the phone, Emily handed it to Tara. "Try to call home, let them know you're safe," she said.

The girl dialed the phone and waited. "Nothing's happening," she whimpered.

"Oh, shit. I'm so sorry, I forgot you have to dial a seven first to get an outside line, otherwise you can only call to different extensions here in the office," Emily apologized. "Here, what's the number, I'll dial it for you."

They tried once more, this time getting a recording: "_We're sorry, all circuits are busy, please hang up and try your call again later."_

They sat dejectedly, staring at the phone until the others returned. Emily grabbed Barry's arm and dragged him over by the windows to the front of the office, affording them a view of the street outside. "The phone lines are as good as down, circuits are either jam packed with people trying to see if their families are okay, or else there's nobody there to operate things," she whispered harshly to him.

"I don't think there's going to be anyone coming to help us," he replied. "Whatever's going on out there, it's getting worse." An explosion burst out from down the street, punctuating his statement.

"What was that?" called Jonathan, pausing in his own efforts of dialing the phone.

"It looks like a couple cars collided the next intersection down," Barry replied, craning his neck in the attempt to get a better view.

Time slowly ticked by, Thomas and Jonathan killing time playing a game of War with a deck of cards retrieved from the security office. Emily sat at her desk playing a game of solitaire on her computer, scanning stations on her radio as she did in the hopes of getting more information about what was going on. Barry sat at a nearby desk, presumably doing the same. Tara timidly approached Emily's desk carrying a pair of Styrofoam coffee cups with her. "It's got cream and sugar in it, I wasn't sure how you take it," she said, placing one of the cups in front of Emily.

"Thanks kid, it's fine."

Pulling up a chair, the girl sat down beside her. "So, what exactly is it you guys do up here?"

"We take money from lonely suckers in exchange for offering them up other lonely suckers, who've also paid us, all in the hopes that they'll finally meet their true love," Barry said sarcastically.

"No, really, what do you do?" Tara said, looking a little bewildered.

"Prince Charming over there handles the job of reviewing pictures submitted by the lovelorn for their personal ads to make sure that there's nothing indecent being posted. I've got the fun job of doing some background checks on new applicants, try to screen out any potential murder suspects or the lawsuits-waiting-to-happen types," Emily explained.

"Speaking of Prince Charmings darling, how's your lovelife doing?" Barry asked.

"Not really the time to worry about it, Bare."

"No time like the present. It's not like we have anything other than time on our sides right now," he pressed.

"I'm in hell and it's a matchmaking service," groaned Emily.

"Now that I can't argue with, but while we've been killing time here, I've been checking out the database and I think I found some candidates with real potential for you," he said, smiling cheerfully at her.

"Barry, with the possible exception of the males in this room, all the men in the world have either gone crazy or have 'victim here' tattooed across their foreheads by this point. Besides, why would anyone desperate enough to join a dating service hold any interest for me?"

"Oh come on, play along would you. Here's one that's a doctor, 33 years-old, five foot ten, with blonde hair, blue eyes...you don't mind someone who's a tad overweight do you Em?"

As Emily cast him a scathing glance in reply, Tara's head bobbed back and forth between the two like a spectator at a tennis match.

"Okay, okay, how about this one. 32 years-old, six foot four, black hair, green eyes and a cop. Just think of all the creative uses for his handcuffs you could find. Hell honey, if I was into heterosexual males I'd be all over him myself."

"Enough already," she said, rising to her feet. "I'm gonna go see if there's anything on the television in the breakroom, so please, do me a favor and stay here. Okay?" she asked, not bothering to stick around for his reply.

"Suit yourself," he muttered, making a note of the profile number before scanning through more.

"Can I see the cop?" Tara called out.

Barry smiled broadly at her, "A fellow matchmaker, come on over."

The television in the breakroom was nothing but straightforward news. Flipping through a few of the stations, Emily saw that they were all pretty much the same, reports of ever-spreading violence across the country, loss of contact with some of our foreign allies, no idea what was causing it. Across the bottom of the screen there was a neverending scroll of rescue stations appeared. She was about to give up, when one channel had something new to say.

"_This just in, our own Tricia Parker, reporting live from Mercy General Hospital," _the announcer declared.

"_Thank you Tom. It's been a disturbing few hours, victims of violence from all across the city are being brought in, and the hospital is practically overflowing with casualties. Most disturbing of all, the reports of armed gangs being behind the initial outbreak is nowprovingto be false. I've spoken with several victims as they wait for assistance and the one thing that rings true with all the stories is this, they are all reporting that their injuries sustained are bites and scratches. The mobs out there aren's using any weapons beyond their own teeth and hands. These wounds are vicious, with large chunks of flesh being torn from the victims' bodies and, as I've been told by the victims themselves, the flesh is being eaten by their attackers. I've been able to get one hospital insider to speak on the condition of anonymity, and he tells me the most disturbing news of all, every person who has been bitten and admitted to this facility succumbs to a coma-like condition within just a few hours of being injured."_

Emily's face was white as she slowly backed away from the scenes of carnage being shown. Turning, she fled from the room, returning to the others to tell them what she'd heard. Together, the five of them stood in front of the windows to the front of the building once more, staring out at the city falling apart before their eyes.


	2. The Discovery

As darkness fell across the city, the small group of five found themselves in the breakroom, sprawled aroundin uncomfortable white plastic chairs and eating whatever they'd been able to piece together from the refrigerator and the vending machines. Their attention was focused on the small television in the corner, its non-stop news reports telling them little about what was actually going on.

"They just keep saying the same stuff over and over again," commented Barry, stating the obvious, as he started flipping through the few stations they could receive. "Their so-called experts don't even know what's going on."

"They're probably limited to what they can say on the air, the government wouldn't want to start a panic," Jonathan said, grappling with Barry for the remote. "Damn you! Just leave it on a channel already, we could be missing something important!"

Barry smirked at him, relinquishing the remote and replying, "How can we miss something important if they're not allowed to say anything over the airwaves?"

"Oh...Why don't...Just blow it out your ass!" stammered Jonathan.

"Would you two just shut up already, you're starting to sound like my parents!" snapped Emily with disgust.

"Shhh...Everyone be quiet, they're saying something new," Tara said, walking closer to the television to turn up the volume.

"_We're going live to Fort Pastor where our very own James Pratt is standing by. James?"_

The screen was suddenly filled with a pair of men standing in front oftwoBradleys alongside a Humvee, a .50 caliber machine gun protruding from its turret. To the left, was obviously the reporter, decked out in a khaki outfit more suited to a safari than a stateside military post. To the right stood a man clad in camouflage. The reporter began to speak.

"_Thank you Dane. I'm here at Fort Pastor with Command Colonel David Webster. Colonel Webster, what's the military doing to help alleviate the situation our citizens are currently facing?" _The reporter asked, flashing the Colonel and the camera his best 'concerned citizen' smile.

"_At this time Fort Pastor is the largest and most secure rescue station in the area. We have multiple search and rescue teams out both on the ground and in the air to provide aide and bring to safety those who are stranded in the hardest hit areas of the city_. _Nationally, by Presidential order, all National Guard and Reserve troops have been called to active duty to help restore order," _the Colonel replied briefly.

"_And what about those areas that are currently free of attack? Are citizens still being asked to remain in their homes_ _with doors and windows locked?" _queried the reporter.

"_If the areas are free of attack the best thing they can do is make their way in an orderly fashion towards the closest rescue station to their homes. In addition to activating troops, the President has decreed a state of Martial Law. Citizens will no longer be allowed to remain in private residences as they have been deemed no longer safe, no matter how minimal the level of activity in your area may seem we cannot guarantee it will remain that way. As for those of you who may now find yourselves stranded, hang tough, we will find you." _

"So what does all that mean?" Tara asked as the screen began depicting images of people arriving at the Fort. They were climbing from trucks, buses, humvees, pretty much every type of vehicle imaginable. All of them shared the same look of fear and bewilderment in their expression, many of them bloodspattered, injured.

"It means that everything is going to be okay sweetie," Emily said brightly, offering the girl a shaky, yet somehow reassuring smile. Jonathan just snorted.

"What was that for?" Tara asked, turning towards the chubby man questioningly.

"Just ignore him, he ain't got nothing to say," Thomas said, looking at the man in question darkly. "Now, if my opinion means anything, I think we did the right thing holing up here, judging by what that Colonel just said. All we need to do to survive whatever craziness is going on out there is sit tight and wait for the rescue teams to come for us."

"And how exactly are those rescue teams gonna know where we are, huh?" Jonathan demanded. "In case you forgot, the streets were filling up with those things when I came back here earlier. It's gotta be ten times worse now, there's no way they'll find it easy to get through here."

"So we put a sign up on the roof," Barry said hopefully. "He said they have airborne rescue teams."

"He's right, we just need to find something to use," Emily said excitedly, grasping onto the idea like a drowning man would a life raft.

"The department store!" Tara said, catching some of Emily's enthusiasm. "There's got to be something down there that we can use. Thomas, you're a security guard here, don't you have some sort of keys to the place?"

"Hell, if we don't have keys we'll just break in," Emily told her. "Under the circumstances, I don't think we'll have to worry about anyone trying to prosecute us."

"Shhhh...Everyone be quiet, they're making some kind of announcement," Jonathan cried out, pointing at the television. Everyone turned their attention to the screen.

"_Momentarily we'll be joined with a representative from the Center for Disease Control who will be making an announcement concerning the outbreak of violence..."_

"Why would the CDC be getting involved in riots?" asked Emily before the others hushed her into silence. Intent upon hearing what the woman representing the CDC had to say.

"_It's been confirmed that the all victims of these attacks have shown immediate signs of infection after being bitten, generally lapsing into a near comatose state in as little as minutes dependent upon the location and severity of the wound. Once this state is reached there is generally a limited amount of time before primary life functions cease and the victims are clinically dead. In as little as three to five minutes after death the bodies are becoming reanimated, returning to life with immediate, homicidal aggression. As near as our researchers have been able to ascertain, these reanimated corpses have no memory of their previous lives, they can't be reasoned with and seem to be acting on pure animal instinct with a single imperative, the need to feed on warm living flesh."_

"_How do we stop those things?" _a reporter called out from the screen.

"_Our research has shown that the most effective way to stop them is by severing the top of the spinal column or else massive trauma to the brain," _the CDC representative responded shrewdly.

"_Are you suggesting that people shoot their own loved ones in the head?" _another reporter called out from the crowd, shock evident on everyone's faces.

"_As I stated before, these reanimated corpses are nothing more than simple motorized function operating on the basest of impulses. These aren't your loved ones any longer."_

The five survivors stared at the television in utter horror. "Do you think it's true?" asked Tara, her face completely ashen.

"I don't know," murmured Emily.

"Look, why don't we head on down to that department store," Thomas said suddenly, breaking through the gloom thathad begun to fill the room. "I think I got some keys for it over in the security office, we can get the supplies for the roof, maybe scrounge up some sleeping bags and pillows for us to use for the night."

"That's actually not a bad idea," admitted Barry. "Let's just make sure we take the weapons with us, even if I don't know how to aim this thing I feel safer just having it close by."

In the end, they all made their way to the stairwell together, no one wanting to be left alone for any amount of time. When they opened the door and started to descend a few steps they were met with a nasty surprise.

"Oh God, what was that?" whispered Tara frantically as a feral snarl echoed its way up through the stairwell.

"How could I have been so stupid!" Thomas said suddenly, slapping his open palm against his forehead.

"What...what do you mean?" Jonathan asked, fear making his voice tremble as perspiration broke out across his pudgy face.

"The stairwell door to the garage, in all our excitement to get the elevator shut off he forgot to lock it," Emily said quietly, meeting Thomas' eyes and seeing him nod quietly in assent.

"We can't go down there now! We have to go back, barricade ourselves in the office," Jonathan rasped out in horror as another inhuman growl filled the stairwell. He slowly began to back away from the others.

"We can't, we've got to lock that door," Emily said bravely, her white knuckle grip on the revolver in her hand the only thing that betrayed her fear.

"She's right, there's no telling how many more of them could get in through that door, right now it sounds like maybe only one, two of them tops. We can handle that," Thomas said with assurance, moving forward to take the lead once again.

"If they aren't already swarming the other floors," Jonathan said, his hand slowly reaching back behind him for the door handle.

"Just stay cool man, it's gonna be okay. If those things were running through the building, they would have found us already. We just need to stay calm," Thomas said.

"Fuck you, I'm not gonna die, not for any of you," the chubby businessman said sharply, bringing another vicious snarl from below as he bolted through the door. "If you want to live you'll follow me now," he cried out, dashing back to the offices. Tara squeaked in fear as a loud thump echoed from below. Her terrified eyes darted back to the stairwell door.

"It's okay if you want to hide Tara," Emily said, turning away to look over the stair railing, searching below for any sign of movement in the dim, flickering fluorescent lighting that coursed the stairwell. Squaring her shoulders she moved to stand beside Thomas, "We'll take care of this."

"Oh fuck that girlfriend, you know I'm coming with you too, Em," Barry said, clumsily hefting the uncomfortable weight of the pistol in his hand.

"I'm sorry," Tara whispered as she turned and fled the stairwell.

"Okay then, I'll take the lead going down," Thomas told the others, slowly descending, his pistol stretched out confidently before him."Emily, I want you behind me. Barry...what can I say man, just try not to shoot either of us, or yourself, for that matter." His words brought a ghost of a smile to Barry's face as he trailed after the others. They moved slowly, carefully, half expecting something to leap out at them from the shadows. With each step they took, the growling and snarling below grew more frenzied. There were more thumps that echoed juicily through the stairwell as well, as if someone were beating a heavy wet mop against one of the runners.

"I don't get it," whispered Emily. "That thing knows we're here, obviously, why isn't it coming after us?"

Neither of her companions bothered to reply, too bewildered themselves by the notion to answer her question. As they reached the landing above the last stretch of steps they had a clear view of the door to the garage level. Sprawled across the bottom few steps, it's face chewed nearly beyond recognition, it's body a mass of chewed up limbs lay the creature.

"Holy shit, it's Phil!" Emily cried out, suddenly recognizing what remained of the computer programmer.

One of it's legs was chewed off just below the knee, the other had gaping chunks of meat missing from it. Large pieces of flesh had also been chewed from his torso, arms, and almost every other part of his body, even his right ear was missing. He was trying to drag himself up the steps, but his legs both seemed to be useless, despite the one remaining somewhat intact. His left arm was hanging uselessly at his side, leaving him with only the right to try and claw the way up the steps. The juicy banging sound was his stump leg, pounding uselessly against the floor as he tried to gain some sort of leverage with it.

"How in the hell did he make it this far in that kind of condition?" Barry asked rhetorically.

"I don't know, but we've got to put him out of his misery if we're gonna reach the door," Thomas said, taking careful aim. With a squeeze of the trigger, the bullet imbedded itself neatly between Phil's eyes and he fell into a bloody heap in front of the door. "Watch him, just in case that didn't do anything," Thomas called out as he sprinted down the remaining steps to the door, locking it securely.

"What do we do with the body?" Barry asked when Thomas rejoined them.

"Nothing for now. We make a quick sweep of the building, make sure that there really aren't any more of those things in here, then get the stuff from the department store and head back upstairs. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough to deal with this."


	3. Crash and Burn

"This is a waste of time," panted Jonathan as the five of them labored to create signs to let rescuers know that they were there. "I haven't seen any sign of airplanes or helicopters all morning."

"All morning? For the love of God, we've only been out here for an hour," remarked Barry. He was trying to come up with a way to hang sheets over the sides of the building. Tara had spray painted things like 'SOS and 'Alive Inside' on them, hoping that they could use the things as signs to attract rescuers coming through the streets. Jonathan and the others were toiling away painting the roof itself with a giant 'SOS Send Help' that spanned nearly the entire roof, because, as Thomas had said, "If this doesn't get their attention, nothing will."

Below them, on the street, a small crowd had begun to gather near the building's entrances. They could also be seen streaming in and out of the parking garage underneath, almost as if they knew the five of them were in the building, they just weren't sure where or how to reach them. Off in the distance, random gunshots had echoed through the air sporadically all morning long, even before they'd come up to the roof. The shots briefly cut through the incessant snarls and growls from the mob below.

Pausing in her work, Tara stared down at the crowd in front of the building. "Do you think it's true what they said on the TV? That those people are actually the dead come back to life?"

Barry didn't even spare her a glance as he replied, "I don't know. I guess in its own, very bizarre, not to mention morbid kind of way, it makes sense. After seeing that guy in the stairwell last night... There's just no way he could have been alive, with the kind of injuries he had, the blood he'd lost... There's just no way. And his eyes, I've just never seen eyes like that on a human being, they just weren't right," he muttered, more to himself than the girl.

"So what are they then?" she pressed, wanting desperately to make sense out of her world that had been so completely turned upside down in the span of a single day.

"I don't know, I don't really think there is a word for them," he said, finally stopping to take in the view with her.

"Zombies," Emily's voice called from behind them. Finished with her part of the roof, she'd quietly walked up and eavesdropped on their discussion.

"What?" the pair of them asked, whirling towards the sound of her voice.

"Zombies. That's what all the horror movies describe them as. They're the walking dead."

Her words caused the others to pale visibly. Feeling Tara begin to tremble beside him, Barry tried changing the subject. "So what's next on our big plan to get ourselves rescued?"

"I don't know," his friend replied. "I really wasn't thinking that far ahead. I'm still dealing with the fact that we are now officially living in our own personal little horror movie. The complete imax experience even."

"What are we going to do about food?" Jonathan asked, as he and Thomas joined the others. "That stuff in the vending machines isn't gonna last us very long you know."

"Not with the way you've been eating it," Barry replied without hesitation as he watched in disgust while the other man open what had to be his fifth bag of potato chips since they'd gotten up that morning. Jonathan stepped towards him, one hand bunching into a fist.

Thomas quickly interceded, before the two men actually began exchanging blows. "We should be able to scrounge up some stuff downstairs in the restaurant, oughta be enough there to get us by until help comes. We can bring it up here, hole up and wait it out."

"Make sure we stick as much as possible with the non-perishables, preferably ones that don't need to be cooked," Emily added quietly, looking out over the city.

"What do you mean non-perishables," Tara asked.

"Stuff that doesn't have to be refrigerated. You worked in a restaurant and you don't know that?" Jonathan said condescendingly. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen. And I've been a waitress there for all of a week, excuse me if I don't know about food," Tara said defensively. "Besides, why should we worry about these non-peri-ma-thingies?"

"Non-perishables. We should be prepared if we lose power before we're rescued, otherwise, anything that needs to be refrigerated will spoil. There won't be any way to cook things either, short of building a fire somewhere," Emily said. She pointed towards clouds of smoke in the distance. "And I'm sure you can all see where that could lead."

"Why do we even need to bother bringing stuff up here?" Jonathan asked, his voice bordering on whining. "We can eat just as easily down there as we can in the office you know. It just seems like a lot of unnecessary work if you ask me."

"Oh come on people, is this gonna happen every time we make plans to do something?" Emily asked in frustration, looking at the faces of the others.

"Is what going to happen?" Barry asked innocently, silently hoping his friend would tell that lazy, fat ass Jonathan where to go.

Giving him a dirty look she replied, "All this asinine fighting. What's it going to take to get us all to just make a plan and stick with it? A fucking act of Congress? The way I see it, if we want to make it out of here alive, we work together, period."

"And just who exactly put you in charge?" demanded Jonathan. "Seems to me around this office I have seniority, not to mention **I'm **the one in management around here."

"Okay. And did that 'management' experience of yours include anything about survival in a crisis situation?" Emily replied. "Does anyone here have any kind of survival training at all?"

"I was in the Army, served in 'Nam from 70 to 71, so I think I know a little bit about survival," Thomas said. The others just shook their heads.

"What about you little miss know-it-all? What's your great survival background?" Jonathan asked imperiously.

"My Dad was a career Marine, trust me, he made sure all his kids learned how to handle weapons and survive in any situation," she replied. "I may prefer going for a manicure over a trip to the shooting range, but I can hold my own."

"Oh, and did Daddy have much experience with the living dead? Did he take you out shooting them often?" Jonathan said sarcastically. "Is that something you have to have a permit for? You know, like deer hunting or fishing?"

"No. But he did show me how to put a bullet in the heads of arrogant, condescending assholes. Would you care for me to demonstrate?"

That temporarily shut up Jonathan, and the others didn't say anything either, Thomas because she'd already said everything he'd been feeling, the rest because they knew deep down that she was right. Finally Tara said, "What about the body in the stairwell? Just the thought of going down the stairs, walking around with it laying there really creeps me out. I don't think I can do it."

"Emily and I took care of it this morning before the rest of you got up," Thomas told her. "Besides, it was a whole flight down from where we're going, you wouldn't even have seen it."

With a little more talk, they eventually managed to wrangle everyone downstairs to the restaurant, where they began loading milk crates full of supplies. Jonathan continued his whining, but in the end they all agreed to lug the crates back up the steps to the office area, unanimously shooting down the fat man's idea of turning the elevator back on and using that to move the food. Early in the afternoon, with the supplies safely stowed away, they all silently agreed that there was little more to be done besides settle in and wait.

It was about that time when Jonathan made the discovery that the television stations had all gone off the air. A few of the local ones were airing the emergency broadcast signal, with the same list of rescue station scrolling across the screen that they'd seen the previous day during the news reports. He sat there, slowly flipping through stations as he ate, hoping against hope that one of them would miraculously return a live broadcast to the airwaves.

Ironically, at the same time Jonathan made his discovery, Tara discovered that the Internet was still working. Unlike its normal up to the minute news, however, all the information she located was dated the day before. Unwilling to give up, she kept surfing the web, hoping she would find something, anything, that would explain what was going on.

Barry went back to messing around with member profiles in the company database, deciding that the best way to pass the time would be searching the files to find the perfect match for Emily, even if they were all most likely the walking dead by now.

Thomas sat in the security office, looking at monitors linked to the security cameras spread throughout both the inside and the outside of the building. There were a few more of the things outside the building, milling around the entrances as if they were waiting for something. Probably hunting them, he thought, if the news reports from the night before about them eating human flesh was true.

Sighing, he turned away from the monitors and stretched wearily, trying to think of a way to speed their rescue. He'd checked the phone lines when he'd entered the office, but they were still useless. Rising to his feet, he walked over to a corkboard mounted on the wall beside the office door. The board was filled with snapshots from a barbecue most of the security team had held the previous Fourth of July. Glancing over the photos, his eyes came to rest on one of himself, his best friend Charlie, who worked the night shift with him, and his son. He felt his heart clench in his chest at the thought of his son, the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not his only child had made it to safety in the midst of all this chaos. Pushing the thought from his mind, he glanced at Charlie's face once more. His friend had never made it to work that last night. Suddenly, he remembered the old police scanner that Charlie had kept in the bottom of his locker. Moving quickly, he headed towards the tiny locker room to search for it.

As Thomas searched for the scanner, Emily moved across the roof, looking skyward and silently praying for a helicopter to materialize into view. She raised a pair of binoculars that she'd swiped from the department store earlier to her eyes, scanning the city. Things appeared even gloomier through the binoculars than the security cameras had revealed to Thomas. Off in the distance, smoke billowed from a fire that appeared to be spreading across an entire block of old buildings with nobody there to stop it. Further beyond that, the normally busy freeway was now littered with abandoned vehicles. All and all, nothing very encouraging.

She tried to remember where some of the rescue stations were located, St. Verbena, that big church in the center of this old section of the city was one of them. It was still better than 20 blocks away, somewhere northeast of this building she figured. Twenty blocks or twenty miles, it may as well have been on the moon for all the good it would do them right now. Fort Pastor was another lost hope, too many of those things already swarming the building to try and reach a vehicle to drive the distance, no chance at all of going on foot. She was so lost in her musings that she almost missed the sound of a helicopter's rotor blades beating the air.

"Hey! Over here!" she hollered, waving her arms and jumping up and down. It didn't seem to notice either her or the signs on their building at first, but then gradually began to make a slow arc that would bring them in their direction. "Yes!" she yelled excitedly.

Down below Thomas finally made some headway with the scanner, only instead of police traffic, he was picking up military transmissions.

"_Home base this is Alpha Fox One Nine, we've got two casualties on board in need of medical assistance, have just spotted SOS signs atop a building in old town, we're moving in for a pick-up then will return to base."_

"_Roger that Alpha Fox One Niner."_

Thomas leaped to his feet and was almost to the door when it happened.

"_Oh Jesus. No! Home base, home base, one of the casualties has turn..."_

"_Alpha Fox One Nine, say again...Repeat, Alpha Fox One Nine, say again."_

A split second after the helicopter began arcing her way, Emily watched in horror as the machine suddenly tilted wildly to one side before rocking back and forth. Putting the binoculars to her eyes she watched as someone tumbled from the side of the Blackhawk helicopter, helplessly plummeting to the street below. As she continued watching the aircraft suddenly began spinning out of control, descending rapidly until it plowed into the side of a building and exploded. "No!" she screamed, dropping to her knees in despair.

Moments later, Thomas came bursting through the door to the roof. "What the hell happened?" he demanded when he saw Emily there. Tears streamed down her face and she pointed a shaky finger towards the crash site. "What happened Emily?" he asked again, more calmly this time.

"I...I don't know. One minute it was in the air, flying towards us...the next...boom," she told him haltingly.

Down below in the streets, the zombies staggered down the street towards the wreckage, lured there by the smell of burning flesh. Unseen by the pair on the roof, two people scampered through the recently deserted sidestreet, moving quickly towards the building, making a beeline for the fire escape. Both were armed with makeshift weapons, a broken pipe for one, a fireman's ax for the other. A few strides away from their destination, one of the creatures leaped out in their path, the man bearing the ax barely paused his stride as he swung, separating its head from its body in a single blow. Before the corpse had even fallen to the ground, the duo had reached the fire escape.

"Great, we're here, now how in the hell do we reach it?" the one with the pipe asked, scanning the street around them in search of incoming dead.

"Give me a boost, then I'll pull you up," the ax-man replied.

"No, how 'bout you give me a boost and I pull you up," the other insisted.

"Not with that arm you won't," he partner replied, pointing towards the makeshift bandage on his forearm.

"All right, just make it quick, I hate to think we make it this far only to buy the farm less than 10 fucking feet from our salvation." Squatting down, he cradled his hands for his partner, giving him the boost he needed to reach the fire escape ladder locked in place just a few feet out of their reach. Gaining a solid purchase, he bent down, offering his partner the ax handle.

"Grab hold, I'll pull you up," he said, straining to make good with his promise. Carefully, they made their way up the ladder, finally reaching the steps that wended their way from floor to floor, ending with a ladder from the fourth floor to the roof.

"Quit all that noise Emily, I think I hear something," Thomas said harshly, moving his head from side to side, trying to pick up the sound. In an instant, Emily was on her feet, pulling her revolver out of her belt where she'd wedged it. Thomas upholstered his own weapon, pointing with his free hand towards where the ladder to the fire escape was located. She nodded in understanding, and the two of them moved as quietly as they could towards it. Once there they waited, weapons drawn. A quiet clanging began echoing up towards them, something was definitely coming up the fire escape and moving fast. Wide eyed, Thomas and Emily looked at each other, steeling themselves to face whatever was coming for them.

"Jesus Christ!" the man toting the fireman's ax exclaimed as he came face to face with the barrels of two pistols.

"Who the fuck are you?" demanded Emily, surprising Thomas over how quickly she'd regained her composure over the helicopter crash. The girl was tough, there was no doubt about that.

"Matthew...Matthew Burns," he said in surprise. "Me and my friend here are just looking for a place to lay low , wait out the worst of this, whatever this is."

Backing up, Thomas gestured to Matthew to come up onto the roof. "Thanks," Matthew said hesitantly before introducing his companion. "This is Aaron. We spotted your signs earlier, figured we might be safe here for awhile."

Emily stared at Aaron's bandages. "You're wounded, what happened? Have you been bit?" she demanded.

"Nah, he sliced it diving through a window, couple streets over. We got pinned down there and separated from the rest of our rescue team," Matthew explained. Looking at him more closely, the other two realized that he was clad in the tattered remains of an EMT uniform, his friend was in regular civilian dress, excluding the military issue combat boots on his feet.

"So what's your story? Where's the rest of your team?" Thomas asked.

"We were dispatched out of Fort Pastor yesterday afternoon, before the shit really hit the fan," Aaron explained. "We were sent out in a convoy of Humvees and ambulances to St. Verbena's, the big church over that way," he gestured with his injured arm. We were told that it'd been compromised, had orders to bring anyone still alive find back to the Fort. It was a suicide mission from the start, they swarmed us as soon as we got near the church, and just overran us. The crowd was so thick, we couldn't hardly move, the lead vehicle...well...the driver couldn't bring himself to plow down people in the crowd, so he brought the whole convoy to a standstill."

"They started climbing on our vehicles, literally pulling men right out of the turrets in the Humvees. Fully armored vehicles, and they were totally useless to keep us safe from them," Matthew added. "After our turret gunner got pulled out, Aaron here just went ballistic, somehow made a U-turn and got us the fuck out of there."

"We tried to make it back to the Fort, but the streets were so jammed up with those things. By the time we made all our twists and turns to get away from them, we were lost," Aaron continued.

"And then we ran out of gas," Matthew added sheepishly.

"After that, it was just a matter of staying one step ahead of those things. We spotted those signs and, here we are," finished Aaron.

"Is there a chance we can walk out of here?" Thomas asked. "We could find a vehicle, make it back out to the Fort."

"No."

"But.."

"No, there were six of us in that Humvee when left the Fort, we lost the turret gunner before we left the convoy, the other three all fell while we were on the run. There's no way we'd be able to make it to a car to get out of here, not unless you've got one parked downstairs somewhere," Aaron said bitterly.

"So it's back to the waiting game," Emily said sadly.

"I'm afraid so," Matthew agreed. "As far as I know, this building is the only thing besides the Fort that's really a safe place to be right now."

"What about a radio?" Thomas asked. "Don't you to have some way of contacting the Fort, letting them know where we're at? They could evac us."

"We had a radio," Matthew said.

"Had? What the hell happened to it?" Emily asked.

"It, ah, kind of got eaten. About the same time our radio man did," Aaron told them.

"Shit."

"Precisely."

"We may as well head on downstairs, you can meet the others, get you some food or water if you're hungry," Emily said. "Take care of that cut on your arm."

"How many of you are there?" Matthew asked conversationally as they descended the stairs.

"Five of us total, we're holed up on the fourth floor in the dating service's offices. The rest of the building is clear, we've got it locked down as best we can,"Emily explained.

"Why don't we head on down to the security office before we go meet the others, there's a first aid kit that might be useful for your arm, and there's something I think you all should see," Thomas told them.


	4. How to Survive Without Even Trying

Thomas had brought the others to the security office and together they listened to the police scanner. He explained how he'd heard the last words of the doomed Blackhawk on it, and even as he spoke, random transmissions still echoed from the devices. Contact between the Fort and the remaining search and rescue teams.

"Wait, why would you be picking up military radio transmissions on a police scanner?" Emily asked skeptically.

"I don't know, it didn't make much sense to me either," replied Thomas. "But once it started scanning the stations, this is what popped up."

"But that doesn't make any sense. They wouldn't be operating on the same frequencies like that," she insisted. "Are you sure it isn't a hoax?"

"How do you think I ended up on the roof when I did? I heard the radio transmissions," Thomas said defensively.

"I think I can shed some light on all of this," Aaron said. "You're right, normally the military would be on a separate and secure communications system, but since they started coordinating their efforts with the locals, they had to be able to communicate with the local law enforcement, fire and rescue groups after all. I would presume that someone at the Fort made the call to operate on local frequencies."

"So, for the time being anyway, we can hear them and what's going on in the world outside, but since we're stuck here with no radio, we're still screwed. That about sum it up?" asked Thomas.

"In a nutshell," Aaron replied.

"The electronics department," murmured Emily.

"What?" Matthew asked, the only one close enough to her to hear what she said.

Clearing her throat she spoke louder. "The electronics department in the store downstairs, maybe there's something down there we could use to send out a message and let someone know that we're here."

"It's worth a try," agreed Aaron. "If you find me something that transmits, I should be able to rig it to contact Fort Pastor."

"About that," Matthew interjected. "I'm not exactly sure that going there is our best option. They've been bringing wounded in ever since the Fort opened as a rescue station, that would include bite victims. It's only a matter of time before they're overrun from within."

"I'm sure they've got some sort of containment plan in place for those bite victims," Aaron replied.

"If we can at least reach them before it happens, maybe they can still get us picked up. Even if they do it when they start evacuating the post," Thomas said hopefully. "They've got to have somewhere else to evacuate to in the worst happens, right?"

"I don't know," Aaron said. "I got called back from leave, and got sent back out on search and rescue duty before I could be fully briefed on the situation."

"Is that why you're dressed in civvies instead of your uniform?" Emily asked.

"No, I uh, opted to wear civilian clothes so I would appear less intimidating to the people we were trying to help," Aaron said cautiously.

Emily didn't say anything at first, though the others could tell from the look on her face that there was something on her mind. Finally, she said, "Well, this may be just an exercise in futility, but I think we need to at least work on the assumption that there is another evacuation point if the Fort does get overrun. I don't want to just be sitting here like I've given up and I'm just waiting to die. If and when that time comes, I want to at least know, deep down inside, that I've done absolutely everything within my power to live. None of us should be willing to go down without some kind of fight. Consider this our very own Alamo."

Her speech was just the little pep talk her companions needed to get them in motion. Matthew accompanied her down to the department store in search of the CB radio, and Thomas went to work re-bandaging Aaron's arm.

Back in the office area, the others remained unaware of the new additions to their numbers, and hadn't even been fazed by the noise of the helicopter crash. Either that or they were too frightened to investigate the sound. Jonathan had yet to pry himself away from the television and its emergency broadcast signal. He was convinced that it would eventually return to normal programming as long as he kept his constant vigil. As long as someone was watching the news would be aired after all.

Tara had abandoned her search of the Internet, or, more to the point, she could no longer connect to it. She'd joined Barry in his perusal of client files, and he kept her entertained with his assessments of the dating service's clients.

"Okay, if a guy is really serious about trying to meet someone online, why the hell would you post a picture of yourself dressed like that?" Tara asked, laughing.

"Girl, you'd be surprised at the number of fashion victims who post on this sight," Barry replied. "I mean, would it kill them to watch an episode of Queer Guy before they try to post this stuff. There's a reason society needs that show."

"But I thought that show was all about helping straight guys get in touch with their inner metro-sexual," Tara said, reading the profile.

"Well duh! But this guy is **so** obviously straight, I mean, look at those clothes, no self-respecting gay man would be caught dead wearing a shirt like that..." Barry trailed off as Tara pointed out the little 'man seeking man' tagline on the profile. "Oh, ouch. Honey, you just need to put yourself right back in the closet until you can come out better dressed," Barry drawled to the screen, causing Tara to burst out laughing. Barry got a devilish glint in his eye, knowing he shouldn't do what he was about to. "Do you want to see something really messed up?"

"What? You mean like going to look out the window or something?" she responded sarcastically.

"Cute, but no. This is something almost as fucked up, but vastly more entertaining," he replied. "The reject file."

"Reject file?"

"Yup. My job here was to go through each and every photo submitted for content approval. These are the absolute best of the worst," he replied, reaching for the mouse and clicking one of the desktop icons. Within seconds, the first picture began to appear. "I'm sure you can see why I had to save them."

"Oh. My. God." Tara breathed out, watching the picture take shape before her eyes.

"Indeed," Barry said in agreement.

"Um...isn't this kind of, I don't know, pornographic or something?" she asked with a grin.

"Art studies. These are more like art studies. Just remember, I'm you're good buddy Barry, not some kind of creepy old guy sharing borderline pornographic pictures with you, you know, if anybody asks what we've been doing."

"Right, you're not a creepy old guy. Just a semi-creepy, kinda youngish guy sharing porn with me. But at least you're gay, so I can probably rule out the idea of your trying to take advantage of me, right?" she said impishly.

He gave her a dirty look, moving his hand as if to close out the file. She grabbed his hand, pausing him. "Wait! I was only joking! You know that. Besides, I seriously doubt if the morality police are going to come breaking through the door to arrest you," she said dryly.

"Speaking of the morality police, I wonder where Emily wandered off too," he said. Tara just shrugged, intent on the monitor in front of them. "I think I may have created a monster," he said, noticing where her attention lay.

"No, I'm not a monster, that's a monster," she grinned, pointing at the screen. They laughed, and Barry forgot about Emily once again.

"You know, I didn't even think they made CB radios anymore," Emily said as she and Matthew walked through the store towards the electronics department.

"Hell yeah, they still make them. You just don't hear that much about them anymore on account of cell phones kind of taking over the market," Matthew replied. "I still have one hooked up in my truck though."

"So tell me honestly, do you really think we'll be able to contact anyone with it? At Pastor or somewhere else even?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know, but I think we'll stand a better chance of getting out of here if we can radio someone. If Aaron's radio plan works, we'll be able to get somebody's attention, then the signs on the roof will show them the way."

"It's really not much to go on," she said doubtfully. "I keep trying to tell myself that we're not totally screwed yet, but it's hard."

"We'll find some way out of here," he tried to reassure her. "I can't believe the entire might of the US military, the US government for that matter, is going to be taken down by a virus. It's a dumb bug, that's all, it can't win."

"You're one of those 'glass half full' types aren't you?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"You see a positive in any situation. The glass isn't half empty, it's half full. We live in a super-power country, a world leader, and we're collapsing from within because of a little disease. But that's inconceivable to you isn't it? We've got the best of everything, yada yada yada. Here's what I see. We've grown arrogant and vain as a country, on the outside we look great, but within... Think about the number of homeless on the streets here, the jobs being out-sourced so businesses can get away with paying next to nothing for labor costs."

"Let me guess, you're a glass half empty type," Matthew said, cutting her off being for she really got going on a tirade.

"Am I that obvious?" she asked, chagrined.

"Nah, not at all."

"So what's your story anyway?" she asked, changing the subject. The two of them came to a halt. "Did the military just take charge of all the EMT's in the city? Or did you run there for shelter and get drafted into being one of their bitches?"

"Little bit of both actually. My partners and I were taking a patient up to City General. Nothing too serious, kid from a car wreck with a broken collarbone. We pulled up to the ER entrance, I was driving the rig, my buddy AJ was in the passenger seat and Jeff was in the back of the rig with the kid. Anyways, it was like any other time, AJ jumped out to open up the rear doors as soon as I parked, and this nurse came walking up. I figured she must have stepped outside for a cigarette or something, so I didn't think anything of it. The she just leaped onto AJ's back and bit his neck, tore his jugular open," Matthew paused, a far away look entering into his eyes as if he no longer saw Emily but was watching his friend be killed all over again.

"When I...When I saw the blood come pouring out from his neck, almost like a geyser, I knew he was gone. There's just so little time to be able to stop a wound like that from bleeding out...you have to clamp it off..." he visibly shook himself, focusing on Emily's eyes once more. "Anyways, I must have panicked, because the next thing I knew I was slamming that rig into gear and flooring it. When I looked in the side mirrors, they just started pouring out of the ER, doctors, patients, nurses...all of them covered in blood, trying to tear pieces off of AJ like he was some kind of fucking buffet platter. I just drove, and it seemed like everywhere I looked, people were running for their lives. I don't know how, but I managed to end up at the front gates of Fort Pastor. They directed me to the filed hospital they were setting up on the old parade grounds, and the rest is history."

"Not quite. How'd you end up out there on the street with your buddy?"

"Luck. All of it bad too. When I got to the field hospital and opened up the back, I found out that Jeff had gotten a broken arm and a concussion during our hasty exit from City General. The kid from the car wreck wasn't in much better shape, and they both got unloaded and checked into the triage area. I was directed to another area where they were putting up tents to house more of the refugees. One minute I was sipping a cup of hot coffee and trying to figure out what the hell had just happened to me, the next, a soldier with a clipboard was signing me up to go out on patrol with one of the search and rescue teams."

"Why would they seek you out like that?"

He tugged on the front of his tattered uniform. "I don't know, something about me just gave them the impression that I had medical training, I guess. Plus, it wasn't just me that they were recruiting. There were other EMTs, police, even firefighters that had ended up stranded at the Fort when they brought in refugees. Most of them were standing in line volunteering to help, some misplaced sense of civic pride I guess. The rest of them were like me, just sitting around, trying to get their bearings."

"What, you mean the mighty EMT I see before me didn't feel some sort of civic duty to go back out and rescue people trapped in this hellhole?"

"Haha. No, no sense of civic duty. I'm probably going to sound like a real ass for saying this, but at that point I was all about looking out for number one...me."

"So why'd you do it then?"

"My ego got the best of me. I didn't want to be the only non-pencil-pushing city employee to back out of returning.

"It was just your ego talking?"

"For the most part. Does that make me some kind of asshole for admitting that?"

"Little bit. But I guess your ego has at least a little bit to do with your continued existence, being that it got you this far. If that's any consolation."

"Little bit," he said, echoing her own words. "And for the record, I've never been anyone's bitch."

"Duly noted."

"What about you? What's your story," he asked as they began walking, albeit very slowly, once more.

"A series of really bad life decisions and I ended up in eternal damnation, otherwise known as the clerical hell that is the dating service. After that, all I had to do was show up to work one morning and I got to end up stranded here. The end."

"There's got to be more to it than that," he said, smiling.

"Oh, you mean the part where I kind of ignored the news reports and thought every one had lost their collective minds? Maybe it was the way I kind of passed it off to myself as some kind of crazy hoax, a promo kind of deal for a new Resident Evil game or something. Or better yet. How about the part where I got to watch Thomas shoot one of our company's accountants between the eyes. I think it was his eyes anyway, there really wasn't much left after those thingies on the street tore into him like it was Thanksgiving dinner. Best of all, not only do I get to be stuck here, I get to be stuck here with one of the evil management minions who stuck a pink slip notice on my time card yesterday morning. Is that what you meant?"

"Actually, I was referring to the way you handled that pistol earlier, I just thought it looked like you must have had some kind of training. But the rest was all very interesting too."

"Oh," she said sheepishly. "That. A girl just needs to know how to take care of herself, that's all."

"You two gonna stand around gossiping all day or are we going to get to work?" Aaron said, startling the two of them from their conversation.

"Just what in the hell are you two doing!" Jonathan demanded. He stood behind Barry and Tara, seeing the picture on the computer screen. Barry hastily closed out his 'rejects' file before turning to face the other man.

"Just killing time," he replied casually.

"By showing a sixteen year old girl pornography! What kind of sicko pervert are you?" demanded Jonathan, his face flushing bright red in anger.

"Actually, these could really be considered more art studies than porn," Tara said helpfully. Barry somehow managed to choke back the laugh her words inspired.

"It's disgusting, that is what it is. And just what do you think your parents would say about your looking at trash like that?" the red-faced man demanded.

"Let's see, my real Dad bailed on my Mom when he found out she was knocked up with me, my step-Dad is in prison for another twelve months on armed robbery charges, and my Mom is probably trying to figure out how many tricks she'll have to pull in order to get enough cash to score some heroin, that's if any of them are still alive mind you, so I would have to guess they wouldn't say a damn thing," she responded matter-of-factly.

Shaken from his self-righteous indignation, Jonathan could only stammer out, "Well just don't do it anymore or I'll have to turn this sicko into the authorities when we all get out of here."

"See, I'm not the only 'glass half full' type around here," a strange voice said.

"Maybe, but seeing as how it's Jonathan, I wouldn't go bragging too loudly about it," Emily replied. She smiled over the mixed looks of surprise on the faces of those in the office. "Gang, let me introduce you to are new arrivals, Aaron and Matthew. They were cut off from their search and rescue squad but they managed to make it here and come up the fire escape. Guys, this is our fucked up family, Tara, our resident teen queen, Barry, her new playmate, and Jonathan. He's sort of our evil dictator type wanna be."

"You're such a juvenile little bitch, I'm glad I recommended terminating your employment here," Jonathan uttered venomously. "And just how did they manage to make it up the fire escape? The ladder would have to be lowered for them to reach it and if they somehow managed to do that then those things will be busting in here any minute."

"See what I meant about that whole 'glass half full'thing? You might want to join our less positive camp," Emily said quietly to Matthew. He didn't answer however, choosing instead to listen as Aaron explained how they came to be there after reassuring them that the dead wouldn't be coming up the fire escape any time soon. Leastwise, not unless they suddenly learned how to think and communicate with each other. Then they might be able to figure out how to lower the ladder so that they could all climb up.

"And is there a reason that makes you think something like that won't happen?" Barry asked.

"No. No reason. To be honest, I'm only saying to you what I've observed out in the streets. There is nothing that would lead us to believe that those things down there are capable of communicating with each other. I'm sure they don't possess any kind of problem solving skills or memories of their former lives. We should all be fine here temporarily. In the meantime, we're working on a plan to get us evacuated somewhere safe."

"What kind of plan?" Tara asked.

"We're going to try and rig up a CB radio to contact someone, hopefully someone at the Fort. Then it'll just be a matter of time before we're airlifted out of here," Aaron said with such ease that it was easy for the others to believe what he was saying. Emily didn't trust him at all.


	5. Matchmaking as Usual

"Barry, have you noticed anything a little...off about Aaron?" Emily asked quietly. She'd finally managed to steal a moment alone with him, Tara having disappeared into the breakroom for a snack.

"Oh I know there's something off about him," her friend replied surprisingly.

"What do you mean 'you know'?"

"Let me show you something I found last night," he told her, tapping away at the keyboard.

"This isn't the time to be trying to push guys who are most likely dead at me," she hissed back.

"Oh ye of little faith," he smirked. "I'm trying to show you why our little soldier boy wanna be is lying through his teeth with all that crap about being recalled from leave."

"Okay girlfriend, dish, now," Emily demanded, glancing about the office to see if they were still alone.

"Remember the other night when I found Mr. Dream Cop for you? Well this was one of the files me and Tara found that we declared unworthy of you," he said, fingers finally halting as the file began to display on the screen. "She's got really great taste by the way, phenomenal instincts."

"Sonuvabitch," she whispered.

"Don't be like that, I didn't say I was ditching you for her..."

"I was talking about the file, Barry."

"Oh."

"That's definitely Aaron all right," she told him, peering at the screen.

"Well duh, Sherlock, that's why I showed it to you."

"According to this, it looks like the only thing he didn't lie to us about is his name," she replied, ignoring his other comment.

"Unless he lied on the profile."

"Please. I run the background checks myself, remember? I think I would have caught something this blatant as being a lie. Read this, Occupation, apprentice taxidermist. What he's looking for in a woman, someone who puts out a lot. Likes to spend long romantic evenings skinning and stuffing animals. There is no way I could have missed this."

"Right. Because you've never screwed up on a background check before, half-assing it after a late night at the bar."

"Fuck you, I never half-ass anything. Except for maybe cleaning my apartment, but that's it. And who in their right mind would make up answers like that on a dating profile either? I mean, the whole idea is to make women think you're a good catch, it's not supposed to scream 'girl repellent' like this does."

"Wow, so you really do have the ability to discern between winners, and the kind of guys you usually date?"

"Once again, this is not the time for that."

"For what?" he asked, playing dumb just for the fun of pushing her buttons.

"Stop being such an asshole, and stop pretending to be dumb, you don't have the poker face to pull it off."

"I was just saying..."

"Well stop. I know I'm a disaster in the relationship department, believe me, I know it better than anyone. And you know as well as I do, most of those guys in this damn computer are probably dead by now," she said quietly. "I don't think you'll need to worry about my relationship abilities any more."

"Oh come on Em, they can't all be dead."

"Fine, except for Aaron they're all deadish."

"You're such a fatalist."

"Have ya looked outside lately Barry? I think I have a pretty damn good reason to be."

"She does have a point Barry, but then, so do you. Sorta," Tara said, having suddenly materialized in cubicle land once again.

"And just how long have you been listening?" Emily asked the teen pointedly.

"Long enough to put two and two together and figure out that you've been looking at that profile of Aaron's, and I'm not talking about checking out that sexy jawline either."

"Sexy? Oh honey, don't start disappointing me now," Barry said in a mock pout.

"Yeah, he's kinda sexy, in a old dude sort of way. I like his jawline, nice and strong. And he's got great cheek bones," the girl babbled.

"She's young, you'll have to forgive her," Barry whispered to Emily, who just rolled her eyes at him.

"Maybe we should just ask Aaron about the profile," suggested Tara.

"Oh, we're absolutely going to ask him about it," Emily told her. "And then, if and when I catch him in another lie, I'm gonna nail his balls to the floor."

"Um, that sounds kind of painful," Aaron said from the main office door. "Do I dare hope that ya'll are talking about Jonathan?"

"Speak of the Cheeto," Tara whispered and Barry snorted with laughter.

"No such luck," Emily said, flashing him the smile that had sent shivers of fear down the backs of each and every one of her brothers on more than one occasion. Aaron felt the same cold chill.

"So, what's up then?" he asked, gamely walking forward to join the trio.

"Well Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do," Emily said in her best Ricky Ricardo imitation.

"Okay, I'll bite. Just what am I supposed to explain?" he asked, smiling, only the rigid stiffness in his shoulders giving away his tension.

"For starters, you can tell us why you lied about being in the Army," she replied.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, genuinely stunned.

"Oh come on Aaron, the profile's right here," she said, pointing at the monitor. Aaron stepped in for a closer look, carefully reading the information on the screen. The others were amused by his growing anger, apparent only by the throbbing vein that appeared at his temple.

"And you guys seriously believe this bullshit is true?" he gritted out between angrily clenched teeth, pivoting slightly so that he could look at each of them in the eyes.

"Is there a reason we should doubt it? Computers don't typically lie my friend."

"No, but the people who use them do. See that username? Shadowlght. That's my ex-girlfriend Brandi's IM name."

"Oh, let me guess. You're going to tell us that she was so pissed off that you dumped her she did this elaborate little profile for revenge."

"No, this looks more like the work of Larry."

"Larry. Who's he? Your ex-boyfriend?" Barry asked with a smile.

"No. Larry would be Brandi's husband. I would imagine that this was the best revenge he could think of since she wouldn't let him turn me in to our CO."

"Okay, so call me slow here, but you're saying that you were in the same unit as you're married girlfriend's husband?" Emily asked.

"That's right."

"And she somehow managed to convince him not to rat you out to the CO?" she prodded.

"No, he more or less did everything she told him to do. He even called and bitched me out when I asked for a transfer to a different unit."

"Why would he do that?" Tara asked.

"Because I hadn't been calling her. I cut off all contact, figured it was in everyone's best interests. Obviously she didn't feel that way so she sent him after me."

"That's what I call pussy whipped," Barry said.

Tara giggled. "This is almost better than my soap operas. All we need is a pregnancy and this would be a goldmine!"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

"Oh my God! She was knocked up too!" the teen squealed.

"You've got to be kidding me," Emily muttered. "His or yours?"

"I'm not quite sure, the timings kind of close. And she would never say. I think she got off on knowing that she could use the kid to play us off of one another."

"Jesus, this is a soap opera," Barry said gleefully.

"So do you have any kind of proof to back this up?" Emily asked cautiously. "I mean, this is a premium account, that means you would have to pay for at least three months worth in advance, credit card only." She sat down at the desk and started typing. "According to this, this was paid with a card in the name of one Aaron G. Forrest. So if this was someone else's handiwork, tell me how they got your credit card?"

"I lived with Brandi and Larry for almost eight months, easy enough for him to get his hands on my credit card. In fact I'm sure that's what happened, 'cause it'd also go a long way in explaining the other weird shit that kept getting sent to me, subscriptions to Playgirl and stuff like that. Oh, and here," he said pulling a battered leather wallet from his back pocket. Reaching inside he pulled out a card and handed it to her. "My military ID card, in case you were still in doubt."

"Okay. So maybe you are legit," Emily said reluctantly.

He nodded. "So can we get on to the reason why I came down here?"

"Do we have to? I want to hear more about this whole ex-girlfriend thing," pled Tara. "I'm totally going through soap opera withdrawals."

"Girl, I totally hear you on that one," Barry said. "By the time I finally get home, my TiVo is going to be out of recording time, and it's all gonna be fucking newscasts and shit."

"We just picked up some more chatter over the scanner," Aaron said, focusing on Emily, and ignoring the others entirely.

"Good or bad," she asked, unable to read the expression on his face.

"Bad I'm afraid. It sounds like Fort Pastor's about to fall to the dead."

"What!" demanded Jonathan, having walked into the room just in time to hear the soldier's words.

"What about the radio? Have you managed to contact anyone on it yet?"

"The Fort's been just a little bit busy to answer the phone," he answered sarcastically.

"Yeah, but what about the search and rescue teams? There's got to be some of them still out searching, right?"

"There's a very remote chance that some of the airborne teams might be out yet," he conceded. "But I really can't say for sure, not until I've actually talked to one of them."

"We may as well just go ahead and put a fucking bullet in each of our heads right now," moaned Jonathan. "No help is going to come. There isn't going to be any rescue. Those things are either gonna come bursting in here and kill us, or we're going to run out of food and starve to death," he cried, growing louder with every statement.

"My vote's for the latter, especially with the way you've been eating," commented Tara.

"Would you people stop making fun of my eating! I can't help it I have a glandular problem!"

"Glandular my ass," muttered Barry. "Every time I see you you're shoving your face full of something."

"Here we go again," huffed Emily. "You, come with me," she said, pointing at Aaron. "The rest of you, try not to kill each other, we don't know if it's just the bites that bring the dead back or what and I'm not in the mood to find out."

"Just remember that he's in the reject pile!" Barry called after Emily's retreating back.

"I'm talking to him Barry, not fucking him!" she yelled back, the subject of their impromptu discussion going bright red in the face at their words.

"Too bad," Barry told Tara quietly. "She could really use a good fuck, might loosen her up. And he looks like he might be worth a quickie anyway."

"That's gross Barry, you said it yourself that he was in the reject pile," his new best friend replied.

"Relationship reject, he's a relationship reject. I never said nothin' about booty call reject," sighed Barry dramatically.

"You both are sick and I'm not going to waste my time with you any more," Jonathan said, stomping away.

While Tara and Barry continued to argue, Emily worked on prying more information out of Aaron. After leaving the main cubicle section of the office, the pair had made their way up to the roof where they stood looking out over the city.

"So if you're really Army, and you've been down in the streets on foot during all this, then level with me. What are our chances of getting out of here alive?"

"I can't even begin to guess that Emily, nothing they were doing at the Fort while I was there made any sense to me. I mean, with all the news reports about the bites spreading the infection they were still continuing to bring the bite victims back into the Fort. It was insane."

"They were scared, injured people. Most of them probably had what was left of their friends or families with them, it's not like you could just shoot them dead in the streets. It would have been cold blooded murder."

"Battlefield doctors would've called it triage, deciding who lived and who died."

"Bullshit. Battlefield doctors have to make the choice between who they know they can save and who they know they can't."

"It's all the same Emily. They still would make the choice of who lived and died."

"But this isn't a battlefield."

"Sure it is. If you listen real carefully, you can still hear the gunfire out there on the streets. And whether you want to admit it or not, somewhere, somebody right now is probably making the choice to bring an uninjured person back to safety and shoot the infected injured one where he stands, because he's already dead."

"But the injured people that were brought to the Fort weren't dead when they arrived."

"Sure they were, we just weren't ready to acknowledge it at the time."

"So what do we do now Aaron? The way you talk it's hopeless. We may as well do what Jonathan says and fucking shoot ourselves now."

"It's not that bad yet," he tried to soothe her. "The best thing we can do is keep trying to make contact using the radio, take shifts, keep someone on it 24-7. Someone's got to hear us eventually."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we start looking for the chance to get out of here on foot."

"Either way, it's suicide."

"So can I ask you a question now?"

"Shoot."

"What the hell is wrong with your friend in there?"

"Barry? He just takes his matchmaking job a little too seriously."

"It's like a bad movie cliche, trying to match people up or something. Like sex would be the big cure all," he said. They both laughed, until they made the mistake of looking at each others face. "So anyway, I guess I'll just keep my distance from him for awhile," he told her nervously, taking a few steps away from her.

"That's probably a good call."

"Although...you know what they say about crises bringing people together..." he drawled off, semi-hopeful looking.

"Momentary insanity that they regret for the rest of their lives, no matter how short that may be,"she replied without hesitation. They spent another uncomfortable moment of silence before Matthew arrived to break the news that they were sure Fort Pastor had fallen to the dead.

A/N: Okay, believe it or not I'm actually going somewhere with this story, even though it may not seem that way now.Basically, I'm just kind of getting a better feel for my characters, seeing who ticks me off and will be the first to be eaten, er, written out of the story. I'm sure you're all thinking 'okay, fat Jonathan will be the first to go' but who knows. Reviews are always appreciated, so focusing your attention on that pretty blue box at the bottom is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

D.S.


	6. Games People Play

While the days seemed to drag by unmercifully slow, before anyone in the office realized it, nearly two full weeks had passed since the world had turned upside down and the six of them had found themselves trapped together. For the most part, everyone stuck close together, too scared to be alone. Not surprisingly, Jonathan was the only noticeable exception. The others spent their nights camped out in cube land together on the sleeping bags and air mattresses they'd raided from the sporting goods department downstairs. They usually ate together in the breakroom, sitting down together like they were family. The cooking and cleaning up after their meals everyone too a turn with too. Jonathan, on the other hand, kept himself separated from the others, choosing to spend both his days and his nights locked up tight in his private office, doing everything in there.

Sometime during the end of the first week, Aaron's plan to keep someone monitoring the radio 24/ 7 completely fell through the cracks. Somewhere along the way, a silent mutiny took place with nobody but Aaron himself showing up to take their shifts. It was all part of the universally helpless feeling they all felt each and every time they looked out the windows and saw the world outside, or else listened to the empty static of the CB radio channels. To combat the feeling, Matthew instigated nightly poker and euchre games that generally ran almost through till the early morning. It was easier to sit out on the roof at night, a stolen radio playing stolen cd's in the background along with the conversations and laughter helping to drown out the moans of the monsters camouflaged by the black of night. For a few stolen moments, they were able to pretend that life was almost normal. During the day, they'd sleep, raid the department store, or else play games appropriated from the store. The days were definitely the hardest part to get through.

It was during a late night euchre game that Emily, Aaron, Thomas and Matthew found themselves alone on the rooftop. Matthew, acting as the host, had some Tim McGraw blaring from the radio, and kerosene lanterns placed all around the roof, which had it glowing almost as brightly as daytime.

"You know, in a couple more weeks those things are really going to start smelling pretty ripe," Thomas commented as he dealt the next hand. Nobody needed to ask what 'things' he was talking about as the occasional moan echoing through the streets drown out the music.

"Please, the stench can't get any worse than Jonathan and his office," Emily replied, sorting through her hand. "Speaking of Jonathan, has anyone actually seen him lately? Or do you think it smells so bad in there because he's dead and rotting and none of us has really cared enough to notice?"

"Oh, I don't think he's dead. Otherwise he probably would have tried to eat us by now," Aaron said, giving her a big grin.

"Okay, SO not funny Aaron," Emily told him. "If we run out of food, dead or not I think he'd probably eat us." The whole table erupted in laughter. "But seriously, I think we need to figure out a way to pry Jonathan outta that office of his and hose him down. It can't be healthy for him sitting in there like that."

"In a city full of dead and rotting corpses literally walking through the streets you're worried that a man sitting in an office knee-deep in his own filth is unhealthy. That's really something," commented Aaron with a wink. Matthew, noticing the wink, glowered at his partner thoughtfully before speaking.

"She does have a point you know," he said, coming to Emily's defense and earning a warm smile from her for his efforts. "After all, we all know what bad sanitation leads to in undeveloped countries."

"I think we've more or less joined the ranks of the undeveloped countries now," Aaron scoffed.

"We may as well get used to the smell, once the power goes down, there won't be any more showers for any of us," Thomas said, more to ease the tension forming between the other two men at the table than anything else.

"All the more reason to get him cleaned up now, before the power goes down," Emily insisted.

"She's so right. That fat guy down there is just so nasty right now," Tara declared, arriving on the roof to join them. "That's why I came up here, I just couldn't take his funky smell anymore. Barry's coming up too, he just had to use the can first," she said, pushing her way between Matthew and Emily and joining them at the table. She looked up at Matthew with adoring eyes and flashed him a big smile.

"See, I told you guys he was making us all miserable," Emily told the others, looking up from her cards and flashing them all a triumphant smile.

"I thought we came up here to play some cards," Thomas said, pointedly gesturing with his own hand.

"I think maybe I'm starting to get a little bit euchred out," Emily said with a sigh, laying her cards down on the table.

"Me too," the older man said with a chuckle, laying his cards down too and standing up.

"So why don't we liven things up a little bit," Barry asked, finally joining the others and hearing their words about euchre. "Who's up for a game of strip poker?"

"I'm in!" shrieked Tara excitedly.

"Emily won't play. I don't think she's got the guts for some serious betting when the stakes are high," Aaron goaded. As far as he was concerned, Barry had just come u with the most brilliant idea of his life. Emily caught his eye, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Deal the cards pretty boy. Put your clothes where your mouth is."

"Kinky," he drawled in reply.

Seeing the look of hostility that came across Matthew's face at the exchange Thomas rose to his feet. "You kids can count me out. I think that I'm gonna go check on Jonathan, maybe give that old CB radio another try." After he left, Barry grabbed his seat and settled in for what he anticipated was going to be a very long, very interesting night.

Down below, Thomas stood in front of the door to Jonathan's private office, his nose curling up at the foul odor emanating from within. Knocking on the door first, he called out, "Jonathan? Jonathan are you in there?" He waited in silence for a few moments, hearing no sound of movement from inside the office. Carefully he reached down to open the door, grasping his pistol in his free hand, the joking words of the others talking about the fat man being dead running through his mind. "Jonathan?" he called out one last time before pushing the door open wide. In the dim light, he could make out a figure crouched behind the desk. Sweeping his hand along the wall beside the door, he grasped for a light switch, finally feeling one, he flicked it on, momentarily blinding himself as the room was suddenly bathed in light.

"What are you doing in here," the fat man demanded. He was still crouched slightly behind his desk, the top of which was covered with food he raided from the breakroom when the others weren't around. He wrapped his arms protectively around the food, seeing where Thomas' eyes had turned. "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not stealing anything, I'm just taking what's rightfully mine," he said, licking his lips nervously. "You people, always making fun of me, what I eat and how I eat it. Always trying to take it away from me. But it's my glands, they need them, it's not me," he babbled, a wild look entering into his eyes.

"It's okay man," Thomas said softly, backing slowly out the door. "We just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed right now. Hadn't seen much of you the last few days, we were worried, that's all."

"You're all just hoping I die. It's the food you care about, not me!"

"That ain't true man, we're worried about you, that's all. But I can see you're okay, so I'll leave you alone now," Thomas told him, swiftly pulling the door closed once more. "Damn, that man is few cans short of a six pack," he muttered, walking back down the hall towards the security office. He was careful to keep a steady watch over his shoulder, for fear of the fat man following him. They were going to have to be extra careful around him until they could find a way out.

Back up on the roof, poker night was in full swing.

"Okay, I see your shoe, and I'll raise you a T-shirt," Emily said with a grin at Matthew.

"I fold," grumbled Barry.

"You're such a wuss man, you fold every time!" complained Aaron.

"It's called playing defensively!"

"Barry, honey, you know I love you," Emily said smiling. "But you know he's right."

"Bitch! Some best friend you are, you're supposed to be defending me, not helping to throw me to the wolves!"

"Don't worry Barry, I've got your back now," Tara said.

"Look, are we gonna talk or are we gonna play some cards?" demanded Emily, subconsciously irritated by the younger girl's behavior.

"Let's play some cards," Matthew said.

The game progressed throughout the night, the smack talk getting worse as the night wore on. Sometime around 2 in the morning, the players all in various states of undress, they decided to put an end to the game. Emily was the big winner of the night, losing her shoes and T-shirt and taking nearly everything else from the rest of the players. Tara was happy to lose, occasionally standing up to stretch or find some reason to strut across the roof in little more than her bra, panties and a smile. Much to her chagrin, it didn't work to gain Matthew's attention, which, like Aaron's, was focused almost entirely on Emily's newly revealed double D's. Grabbing up their clothes, Aaron and Matthew followed Emily below, each vying for her attention, while Tara and Barry remained on the roof.

"It's not fair!" the teen shrieked once the others had gone.

"What's not fair?"

"There are only two girls here in the group and only two eligible guys and they're both in there drooling over little miss big boobs."

"I don't think that their interest is entirely about her boobs," he defended.

"Bullshit. I'm young. I'm hot, I'm way more hot than she is, so aside from the big tits I don't see what the big attraction is," she pouted.

Barry rolled his eyes. "Maybe it has a little bit to do with the whole jailbait factor? You're sixteen, Em's an adult, sorry, but you do the math."

"Who's side are you on Barry? I thought you were supposed to be my friend."

"I am your friend, but I'm Emily's friend too. Besides, it's not like those two are the only eligible men left on the planet, I'm sure we'll find some younger, David Boreanaz kinda hottie for you once we get out of here."

"If we get out of here."

"You know what we need?"

"What?"

"Some alcohol. And I remember seeing some downstairs in the restaurant. You up to making a beer run?"

"But it's so dark down there, and those things are right outside," she said hesitantly.

"Come on Tara. If you're really a big girl then you'll come with me. Emily would do it if I asked her to," he said, crossing his fingers behind his back.

"Fine, let's go."

The raid on the restaurant went without a hitch. The noise of the moans was so much louder down there compared to what they'd heard on the roof before almost made them both wet themselves in fear, but otherwise it was easy. After grabbing up their loot, they returned to the roof to drink.

"Who the hell picked the music, god, it's driving me nuts!" Tara slurred out, pulling out the cd and rummaging through the others that had been brought up there.

"Girl are you kidding? That was Tim McGraw!"

"So."

"So? Have you ever seen the way that man fills out a pair of tight jeans? It's a shame he's straight, that's all I can say."

"Aha. Now this is what we need," she said, popping a cd into the player and cranking up the volume. In a matter of moments the two were singing along, very off-key.

"Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the girls are pretty, oh won't you please take me home..." they sang with drunken glee. Four bottles of wine and a few hours later, they staggered their way down from the roof once more.

"I'm not ready to go to sleep yet, I wanna make another beer run," Tara whined.

"You know, it's kinda ironic that we're calling it a beer run, when its actually wine we're talking about. But I guess a wine run just doesn't have the same ring to it," Barry answered.

"Beer run, wine run. Whatever. Let's just go get some more."

"Nah, I think we should just call it a night," Barry said sleepily, yawning loudly.

"Fine, you go to bed, I'll see you in the morning."

Shaking his head at her, they parted company at the door to cube land. He didn't really believe that she would go down to the restaurant alone, so he just crawled into his makeshift bed and passed out. Out in the hallway, Tara stood in front of the elevators mumbling to herself.

"Those stairs are just so far down. I should just take the elevator," she mumbled pressing the call button repeatedly, getting more and more upset that the door didn't open. In her drunken state, she completely forgot about how they'd disabled the elevators that first day. "Fuckin' door must be jammed." She staggered down the hall to a custodial closet, opening up the door and flicking on the light. "There's gotta be somethin' here I can open that door with. At last she found a pry bar buried on the bottom of the shelf. Taking it with her, she returned to the elevator doors. With a little bit of effort, she cracked the doors open just enough to fit her hands through and started pushing at the doors with all her strength. "Fucking idiots, if they'd just brought the wine up here to begin with," she gritted out as the door finally opened. "Bought goddamn time," she said, stepping forward into the blackness of the shaft.

In the darkness of the night, filled with the moans of the undead, does anybody hear you scream?


	7. Everything's Different in the Morning

"Barry. Barry wake up! Barry, Tara's missing, you have to wake up!"

Emily's words slowly began to penetrate through her friend's alcohol fogged brain, but it was her insistent shaking that really did the trick. With every jolt, his queasy stomach began to protest.

"Damn girl! Stop shaking me! Oh, I think I'm gonna puke!" he exclaimed, his face turning ashen in color. He pulled himself to his knees, half-crawling, half-dragging himself towards the nearest trash can. The others woke to the sound of his retching.

"Emily? What's going on?" Aaron asked, materializing behind where she knelt, his hand coming up to gently squeeze her shoulder.

"Tara's missing. I don't know, I heard some kind of noise, like one of those things outside. Only a lot closer, like it was inside the building, and it woke me up. Anyway, when I got up to look around, she was gone."

"Why didn't you come get me? You shouldn't be poking around this place in the middle of the night all alone," he chided.

"Well I didn't go very far now did I?" she asked angrily. She was really put out by his assumption that she wasn't capable of taking care of herself. "I thought maybe she'd just gone to the bathroom or something, so I looked there first and didn't find anything. Then I heard sleeping beauty over here snoring away, and he was the last person to see her, so I figured I'd wake him up and ask."

"Does he know anything?" Aaron asked, wisely trying to keep the subject on Tara when he saw the glint of anger in her eyes brought on by his previous statement. Mentally he slapped himself for his stupidity. Rule number one, never insult a feminist by suggesting she needed a man to protect her from things that go bump in the night.

"No. He hasn't stopped puking his guts out long enough to say anything."

A few minutes later, Barry heaved himself into a sitting position, looking up at the group forming around him. "Just give...give me another minute...and maybe a mint...if you have one," he panted pleadingly.

"Barry," his friend gritted out threateningly, as Thomas and Matthew joined the others in a semi-circle that was slowly tightening in around him.

"Okay, okay," he said, rubbing his temples in a vain attempt to ease the throbbing that had started up there, making his head feel like it was going to explode. He barely bit back a laugh as he envisioned what the reactions of his companions would be if something like that happened. "The last thing I remember was after you three left the roof last night. Tara was pretty upset, so I thought that maybe a little drink would make her feel better. So we went down to the restaurant and raided the wine cellar. If you can call it a wine cellar."

"That's it?" Emily demanded.

"What was she upset about?" Thomas asked, his voice filled with fatherly concern.

"I'd rather not say."

"Spill it Barry, it could be important," Emily insisted.

"Okay. But just remember that you asked for it," he groaned, wishing he was feeling better so he would actually enjoy spreading gossip the way he usually did. "She's pissed off that all the eligible men around here seem to be fighting over you and forgetting that she's a hot little available dish herself. Oh. And I think she's suffering from some serious boob envy too."

"Look, why don't we head on down to the restaurant and look for her there," Thomas said, taking charge and changing the subject when he saw Emily's face go up in bright red flames. For their part, Aaron and Matthew both shifted uncomfortably a step away from Emily, and refrained from making eye contact with anyone.

"No. Wait," Barry said quickly. "The roof. I think I remember going back up there after we got the wine. Something to do with Guns N' Roses. I just wanted to make her feel better, that's all."

"By getting her drunk?" demanded Emily, finding her voice once more. "Really great decision there Barry. Next time, maybe you should just take her for a stroll down the block if you're that anxious to try and kill her."

"Hey, maybe it wasn't the best idea on my part, but you've got no right getting pissy with me about it," he lashed out at her, grasping his head as it pounded agonizingly. "I'm not the one shaking my ass like some kind of bitch in heat making all the men drool over me, tormenting a young girl who just wants a little bit of attention."

"You bastard! I've never done anything like that before in my life!"

The two friends glared at each other. "Look, standing around and arguing isn't going to help us find her any faster, so let's split up and go look. Thomas, Aaron, why don't you go check out the security office and the roof. Barry, you can stay here in case she turns up. Emily, you and I will go check out the restaurant," Matthew announced, trying to discharge the situation a little bit. Aaron shook his head slightly and grinned as he began making his way towards the main door, impressed over the way the paramedic had maneuvered it so that he could be the one alone with Emily. Mentally, he slapped himself again. He really needed to stop thinking about her so much, right now finding the missing teenage drama queen had to be his top priority.

They all left the office together, heading towards the stairwell at the end of the corridor. Thomas was the first to spot the elevator doors standing ajar, revealing the inky blackness of the empty shaft. When they'd cut the power to the elevator, they also cut off the service lights that would normally shine inside. "Hey, how did those get opened up?" he asked.

A low moan rose up, echoing from inside the darkened shaft.

"Sonuvabitch. Did one of those things get inside here?" Aaron demanded, confusion spreading across all their faces.

"I think it's Tara," whispered Emily in horror.

"Someone get a flashlight," Matthew ordered, crouching beside the shaft. Thomas sprinted the rest of the distance to the security office, returning swiftly with a couple of flashlights. The four of them crowded around the entrance, following the beams of light as they darted around and finally settled on the shape of a body lying prone below. Another moan echoed up through the shaft as the body slowly its shifted position, letting out a hiss of pain as it looked up at the beams of light and the shadowy figures outlined in the door.

"Oh please, somebody help me!" Tara's voice called out weekly.

"Thank god, she's alive," Emily breathed, her free hand involuntarily squeezing that of the person closest to her. Aaron smiled at her touch.

"We're lucky, the elevator is stuck between the second and third floors. It was a pretty good distance to fall, but not necessarily lethal. She survived it anyway," Thomas said.

"Now we just need to get her out of there," Aaron said, shining his flashlight in and taking a good, hard look around the shaft once more. "We've got two options. Either turn the power back on, bring the car down to the second or third floor and lower her through the roof access hatch, or else pry open the doors on the third floor, climb down and lift her out. My votes on the second option."

"I'm with Aaron, if we turn the power back on, all it would take is having one of those things down in the garage bumping the call button and we'd all be dead," Emily declared.

"Majority rules," Matthew said. "Emily, stay here, talk to her, let her know help's on the way. Aaron, see if you can get that third floor door pried open, Thomas we'll go get some supplies from the department store, ropes and what not to get her out."

It was nearly sunrise by the time they'd gotten Tara out of the elevator shaft and could tend to her injuries. The most serious ones that they could see, were a dislocated shoulder and a busted ankle. The rest appeared to be superficial bumps, bruises and scrapes. Despite her pain, she was momentarily in heaven, surrounded by Aaron and Matthew, the center of their attention as they prepared to pop her shoulder back into place. Thomas joined them, holding her legs steady as Aaron helped her into a sitting position, firmly holding her there, while Matthew prepared to manipulate her arm. "Now, you're gonna feel a little twinge," Matthew said as he suddenly wrenched her arm up, popping the shoulder back in smoothly. Her agonized shriek practically deafened everyone in the room. "Shhhh...it's all right," he said softly, wishing he had something stronger than an aspirin to give her for the pain. "The worst of it's over." While he went to work, creating a makeshift sling that would keep her arm pinned to her side, Aaron slowly backed away.

"That was more than just a little twinge," she cried, biting her lip.

"If you don't need me any more,"Aaron drawled out.

"Thanks, we've got it covered," Matthew said, concentrating on his task and murmurring comforting words to the girl.

"I'll help him with the ankle," Thomas added. Without a backward glance, Aaron disappeared, heading towards the stairwell. Barry moved in beside Tara and took her hand.

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault," he wailed pitifully.

"Yea, it is," she agreed, big, fat tears rolling freely down her face.

Aaron located Emily up on the roof. She'd dragged a sleeping bag up there, and that's where he found her as she lay, watching the sun rise up into the sky.

"Nice view you've got here," he called out. "Mind if I join you?"

"It's a big roof," she replied, still staring at the sky.

"Yea, but there's only one comfortable seat," he said, standing beside her and gesturing towards the sleeping bag and giving her a sad puppy dog kind of look. With a sigh, Emily sat up, scooting over and making room for him beside her.

"So, how's Tara doing?" she asked, not looking at him.

"Everything seems to be fairly superficial. I think she'll be okay, unless she's got some internal injuries we don't know about."

"What are the chances of that?"

"Couldn't say, I'm not the medic around here."

"Point taken."

"So are you really that enthralled with the sun, or is there some other reason you won't look at me?" he asked.

"Just a little utter and total embarrassment over what Barry said earlier, maybe."

"Nothing to be embarrassed about. I don't think you prance around here shaking your ass for me and Mattie's enjoyment. Not that we don't enjoy watching you walk," he added lamely. Open mouth and insert foot, he thought to himself. Way to go Aaron.

"Ah. But you do think I'm some kind of bitch in heat though, is that it?" she asked, finally daring to look him in the eyes.

"Now you're putting words into my mouth," he said. "You're no bitch in heat, and I think I can safely say that neither me or Mattie feel that way."

"Mattie. I've never heard you call him that before."

"That's because I just made it up. And for the record, I'm not much of an ass man myself. I guess you could say I'm more of a leg and chest man," he said, making them both laugh.

"So what's your story Aaron? Really. I mean, I know the little tale about the crazy ex-, and how you ended up here with us, but what's the rest of the story?"

"Not much to tell really."

"So tell me anyway."

"Well, for starters, I was born and raised in a little town called Sierra Vista in Arizona. Right next door to Fort Huachuca, well, the town really exists because of the fort. Anyways, I guess my real dad was a soldier stationed there for awhile. He knocked up my Mom when she was sixteen, and by the time she realized she was pregnant, he'd already received orders and had moved on."

"Did she ever tell you who he was? What his name was? Did you ever look for him?"

"No, no, and no. If she knew who he was, she never told me. I always got the impression that it was a one night stand, and she was too drunk to remember anything about it," he said softly.

"Oh, Aaron, I'm sorry."

"No reason to be. We managed to get by, the two of us. When I was ten she met First Sergeant Harrison Forrest, assigned to Charlie Company, 40th Signal Battalion. He was fifteen years older than she was, and it was love at first sight. They got married about four months after they met, and he legally adopted me. They were together until they got killed in a car wreck three weeks ago. That's what I'd gone home on leave for. The recall came about an hour after the funeral service. It was good timing really, by that point it was just dealing with all those well-meaning friends and relatives, constantly asking every five minutes if I was okay, if there was anything they could do for me. I kind of took it as a blessing to be called back here, anything to get away from all that."

"What about the rest of your story?" Emily asked, taking his hand and toying with his fingers, making him smile. "That was more of an abbreviated story about your parents, I want to know about you."

"Noticed I kind of left that part out, huh?" he asked with a grin. "Not much to say, I joined the Army when I was seventeen, went through basic the summer before my senior year of High School. Planned on pulling a four year hitch to get the GI Bill, and go back to college. Ended up going career instead, been in for damn near half my life now. End of story."

"Not. So where have you been stationed, oh, old and wise one," she teased.

"Thirty-four is not old," he said with a laugh. Let's see, obviously you know about Fort Pastor, my other CONUS assignments were Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Knox, and Fort Benning. OCONUS, I did a year in Korea, and pulled a few tours in Germany."

(A/N: CONUS is short for 'Continental United States' conversely OCONUS is short for 'Outside the Continental United States.')

"You get around."

"I guess you could say that."

"So what assignment did you like the best?"

"Probably Mannheim or Wuerzburg in Germany."

"Ever married?"

"No."

"Ever engaged?"

"Nope."

"Any significant other waiting out there for you?"

"No, and even if there had been, I really don't think the chances are good that she'd still be waiting. Unless it was to eat me, and not in a good way either," he said with a grin.

"Not funny," she said, laughing anyway. "So..."

"So, isn't it about time for me to have a turn at asking some questions?" he said, cutting her off.

"Not much to learn, but go ahead, ask away."

"Boyfriend?"

"No."

"Husband?"

"Yea right," she said, rolling her eyes and making him laugh.

"I find that really hard to believe."

"What?"

"That a woman as beautiful as you isn't married or with someone."

"Oh, that was good. You should have warned me and I could have wore some boots or something."

"What do you mean by that?" he laughed.

"Well, if I'd know the bullshit was going to be this deep, I woulda wore some boots," she said.

"It's not bullshit," he protested. "I'm totally serious here." She shook her head, looking out at the sky once more. He reached out, and hooked a finger under her chin, turning her face back towards him. "I'm serious," he whispered, a split second before his lips came down on hers.


	8. Something's Rotten in Denmark

"So how are you feeling?"

"My ankle's broke, my shoulder's dislocated and Matthew thinks I have a couple cracked ribs, plus a rather lovely assortment of your average bumps, bruises and abrasions. How do you think I am?" Tara fairly growled.

Emily was almost sorry that she'd decided to pay her a visit. Barry was supposed to be in the room baby-sitting her, but of course he was no where to be found. "Yea, you're right, that was a pretty dumb question," she said placatingly. "Anything I can get for you?"

"Unless you have some serious pain meds tucked up your sleeve or something, I highly doubt it."

"Okay. Sorry I stopped by, I just thought I'd see how you were," Emily said softly, moving back towards the door of the office where Emily reclined on some bigwig's leather couch.

"Wait, Emily, please don't go," the girl pled. "I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch, I'm just going a little stir crazy. I don't mean to take it out on you, it's just that I've been stuck here for the last two days listening to those things outside, and my whole fucking body just aches. I swear, if it wasn't for all the attention Matthew and Aaron have been giving me, this whole experience would truly suck."

"Matthew and Aaron?" Emily said questioningly.

"Look, uh, I'm really sorry about the other night, during the poker game," Tara hedged. "I shouldn't have been so jealous, I mean you are **so** much older than I am."

"Gee...thanks."

"No, I don't mean it like you're old old like grandma kind of old, just that you're, you know, old."

"I reiterate, gee, thanks," Emily said, starting to leave once more.

"Don't go, please. I really didn't mean it as an insult, you're just kinda twisting my words around, that's all. I just wanted to let you know that I can understand why two hot guys like that would be totally in to you at first. You know, since you're old and you've got all the experience and stuff. It probably takes them awhile to get ready for a hot young thing like me."

"Okay, and I'm not supposed to find this insulting because?" Emily asked. "And since when were you all hot for Aaron? I thought he was just some kind of reject to you and Barry?" she added angrily before the teen could respond. Whether or not the redness of Emily's face was due to anger, or to the hot memories of the previous morning on the rooftop that the mention of Aaron continuously brought to mind was a toss-up.

"I'm really not trying to insult you!" the younger girl insisted, struggling to set up on the couch more fully. "And Aaron's always been kinda hot, he just grows on you more the longer you know him. Besides, Barry was the one who declared him a reject, not me. Of course Barry did say he was the ideal booty call material, so I'm really not sure on his whole little 'reject' thing. Anyway, I was the one who said he had a great profile and awesome cheekbones. And then there's the way he climbed down that elevator shaft just to save me," she sighed dramatically. "He's a real hero, and now I realize that he's like totally thinking of me as a slammin' hottie too. Did you know, he couldn't even stay in the room with me yesterday morning when Matthew and Thomas set my ankle? I think after seeing all the pain I was in when he helped with my shoulder he just couldn't bear to watch me suffer any more. And then Matthew. What can I say, I don't think an hour has gone by since they pulled me up that he hasn't stopped to look in on me. I mean, he practically can't take his eyes off me. I'm hot even when I'm all bruised up."

"You really have a flair for the dramatic," Emily said when the girl finally came up for air, a touch of anger sneaking its way into her voice. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask the girl if she had any idea where Aaron had gone after fleeing from her bedside, but she held her silence.

"Ooohhh, do I hear the start of a cat fight?" Barry asked, materializing suddenly in the doorway, bearing a makeshift tray with a couple cups full of what was presumably coffee.

"No we were just having a little bit of girl talk," Tara responded cheerfully, flashing a quick look at Emily, her demeanor doing a complete 180 from just moments before.

"No, you were hearing the tail end of a rather one-sided discussion that has officially ended," the other woman gritted out, pushing her way past Barry and out the door.

"Em?" her friend called after her. Failing to get a reply, he turned towards the injured teen, "Okay, what did I just miss here?"

"Nothing! We were just talking about Matthew and Aaron and she just got totally bent out of shape about nothing."

"Look, I'm like a total gossip whore, so I know there's got to be more to the story than that," he said goadingly. "I've known Emily for more than five years, it takes a lot to push her buttons like that."

"Well...I may have pointed out how I the guys might find they need to practice on an old woman like her before they tried their luck with me."

"Oh my god! Tara, tell me you didn't say that!" he shrieked excitedly.

"Maybe not in quite the same words, but in effect."

"That's priceless! I wish I could have seen her face, was it like this total bright, splotchy red color? She gets that way when she's really mad. Her face went red like that one night when we was out clubbin' and to this day she's never told me what the guy said to her, but she totally laid his ass out on the floor. That girl has a serious set of balls when she's pissed off."

"But I wasn't trying to piss her off, I was just telling the truth," Tara told him.

"The truth according to who?"

"I'm not blind you know, I've seen the way the two of them have been looking at me since this all happened, and the way Aaron climbed down that elevator shaft to save me. Please, I know they're both hot for me."

"Not that I don't think you're a hot little number capable of having two men drooling over you, but I have a little bit of a reality check for you. It's not like he climbed down some deep cavern to rescue you, it was only half a floor,"

"It was still brave."

"And all the extra attention. I probably should have told you about this sooner," he said slowly.

"Told me what?"

"Matthew said that from the way that you fell, or, at least from the way you landed, there'd be at least a small chance that you could have internal injuries."

"So what? He already told me I probably have a couple of cracked or broken ribs. That's why my chest hurts so much when I breathe."

"Right, and broken ribs have been known to do things like puncture lungs or something. I think I saw that on TV once or something. Anyway, with all of the others thinking along the lines of internal injuries, they wondered what the odds were of something that we couldn't see being lethal."

"You mean I could die?" she whispered hoarsely, her face going even paler than it was already.

Barry looked at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. "Matthew said it wasn't outside the realm of possibility. And once he said that, I think they were more concerned about the thought of what would happen after...I mean, **if**, you died. So, what I'm trying to say..." He shook his head, reluctant to continue, but knowing deep down inside that she deserved to know what the others were saying. "Look, there's really no nice way to say it, so I'm just going to say it. The guys have been watching you more closely because they're all a little bit nervous that if you were to die from something like internal bleeding or punctured organs or something totally icky like that, then you might come back and come after us. If they didn't take care of you first."

Tara was stunned. "You keep saying that 'they' think and what 'they' said. I want to know what you think?" She looked expectantly up into his face.

"I know you're going to be fine," he told her, plastering a smile to his face.

"Emily's right. You don't have much of a poker face," she told him, her voice quivering slightly. A tear began to roll down her cheek as she thought about what he'd said, hastily she wiped it away.

"Tara, honey," he said, sitting down on the floor in front of the couch and taking her hand. "I **know** that there's nothing wrong with you, and **I** think you're going to be fine, just as soon as that ankle and your shoulder get better." He smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't worry about my shitty poker face either, I just let those doomsayers get to me a little bit, that's all."

"She's one of them," a voice rasped from the doorway. Barry whirled about to face the door and saw Jonathan standing there.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Barry," Tara squeaked, trying to cower down behind him as much as she could when she caught sight of the menacing rifle the crazy man in the doorway held.

"She's one of them, maybe she doesn't look like it now, but she is. If we're not careful and get rid of her now, she'll get us all. You should let me do her now, quick, before she turns."

"Thanks for the offer Jonathan, but I'm sure she'll be fine. It's been over a day now, she's getting better."

"That's how it starts, they lull you into a false sense of security and then **BAM!**" he finished with a shout, causing both of the people in the room to jump. "They're tearing out your heart...popping out your eyes...shredding your flesh and eating it all. And when they're finished...that's when what's left of you gets up and joins them."

"Jonathan!" Matthew's voice called out from behind him, just before the medic pushed the other man out of the way. "Hey man, it's really great to see you out of that office. Maybe you should got grab yourself a nice hot shower in the security locker room before Barry over there uses up all the hot water." Though his voice was cheerful, he flashed Barry a hard look, letting the other man know he'd heard everything the crazy man had said. "Now if you gentlemen don't mind excusing us for a few minutes, I really need to check on my patient here."

"Sure. No problem. Tara, I'll be right outside the door if you need me," Barry said, scrambling to his feet. As he passed Matthew, the medic whispered to him.

"Let the others know what he said, maybe they can try to get that gun away from him."

Barry nodded, focusing his attention on the man in the door. "Come on Jonathan, why don't you grab that shower. I think Emily was getting ready to fix some breakfast for everyone, maybe it'll be ready by the time you get done." Very cautiously, his heart racing the whole time, Barry pushed the other man out the doorway, firmly pulling the door shut behind them.

"I don't need a shower, I need to eradicate that thing in there. You know it, the others do too, so there's really no point in delaying the inevitable," Jonathan rasped.

"You totally need a shower, I've smelled better things cleaning out my cat's litter box. And Tara's not one of those creatures, and she isn't gonna be, so don't even think about killing anyone," Barry said bravely.

"Of course you'd say that, you're probably one of them too! I'm the only one left!" he cried wildly, sprinting away and back to his office. "You won't get me too you bastards!" he shouted out just as he slammed the door shut.

"Great, just great. Of all the building to get myself trapped in, I have to choose the one with the psychopath with a gun," muttered Barry. He waited outside the door, listening to a series of thuds that was presumably Jonathan barricading his office shut, until Matthew emerged once more.

"What are you still doing here? I thought I told you to go tell the others what happened."

"I was going to, but then Jonathan started spouting off about how he was the only one left here and that the rest of us would never get him, and I kind of thought I should stay here and watch the door in case he came back."

"Came back from where?"

"Oh, he's back in his office, barricading himself in so that the 'things' can't get him."

"Those creatures aren't gonna get inside here," Matthew said confidently.

"Maybe not, but according to our little psycho, we're the bad guys."

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do," Matthew said, pulling a 9mm pistol from the waistband of his pants where it had been concealed by his shirt and handing it to Barry. "I want you to stay here with Tara, make sure that asshole doesn't try anything. I'll go fill in the others, see what we want to do about him. You do know how to use one of those, right?"

"I know the bullet come out this end," Barry replied.

"Look, here's the safety, on, off, think you can remember that? This button here releases the clip, you've got nine shots left in here. Slide this back, click off the safety, and you're ready to go, just make sure you point the dangerous end at the bad guy."

"Since you're the one who knows how to use one of these things, shouldn't you be the one to stay behind with Tara?"

"Probably, but I also don't want to lead the girl on. Between you and me, I think she's got a little bit of a crush on me."

"You're kidding?" Barry said dryly. "I hadn't noticed."

"Has it been that obvious?"

"Pretty much, unless you're like completely blind and stone deaf."

"Okay, I get the message, and it's all the more reason for me to back off. Just stay here with her, the rest of us will be back soon."

Inside his own office, Jonathan overheard the hushed voices in the hall. He sat on the floor his ear pressed to the wall, listening. As he heard Matthew's footsteps retreating down the hall, he sat up, hugging his arms about his kneesand rocking back and forth, lost in his own thoughts.

_Those two in the hall, they talk like there was something wrong with me, like I'm the one with a problem. But they're creatures, just like the ones outside who ate Phil. It's payback time. They might think they've got me trapped in here, but I'll show them. It'll be so easy to take them all down after all, just a matter of divide and conquer. The girl is all alone with her little protector now, first them, then the others. It'll be so easy._

The chilling sound of his laughter echoed through the room, penetrating through the thin walls with ease.


	9. Always When You Need One

"Where's Emily?" Matthew asked as he arrived in the main office area.

"Don't know. She just came speeding through here like a bat outta hell, looking a little ticked off," Thomas answered. "Did something happen between her and Tara?"

"I don't know, but we need to find her. Things with that crazy fat man just took a turn for the worse," the medic said, then filled them in on all the details. "I think it's in all our best interests to stay close together for awhile, at least until we know for certain that Tara's not going to turn into one of those monsters. We're also going to have to do something about the nut case, he's still got a rifle with him, God only knows how much ammo. We may have to take him out if we're going to survive."

"You mean kill him?" Thomas asked, appalled. "I know he's a bit off his rocker, but we can't kill a man just for being crazy."

"Look, I'm gonna go look for Emily, she shouldn't be alone right now," Aaron said. "Thomas,why don't you head on down tothe security office, get what ever weapons and ammunition we have left there, we'll want to keep them close until we get things under control with the fat man. Matthew, you should probably stick close to the other two, I don't think either of them are gonna be much for self defense."

"He's right, Tara was bad enough handling a pistol when she had both hands working, and Barry's even worse," commented Thomas. Matthew cringed a little bit, he hadn't quite taken Barry's reluctance over handling the gun he'd given him very seriously. Obviously not a wise decision on his part.

"I'm on it," the medic replied, retreating back towards the office.

"I'll try to locate Emily," Aaron said once more, hastily departing the office.

As he walked outinto the main corridor, he hesitated, not quite sure if he should try out the department store or the roof. Common sense told him she'd be hiding out in the department store, his gut feeling told him the roof. He followed his gut. Stepping through the access door, the first thing that greeted him was the bright sunlight streaming down from overhead, the second, was the smell of decay. He glanced around, placing his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun, not seeing her anywhere at first. Stepping more fully onto the roof, he spotted her at last, seated in what had become his favorite spot on the roof.

"I'd wondered where you disappeared to," commented Aaron, walking quietly up to stand beside her.

"I needed to get some fresh air after talking to Tara."

"Fresh?"

"Okay, maybe it's not fresh, but the stench of rotting flesh is definitely preferable to being in the same office with her right now."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Something had to have happened for you to come up here all pissed off. The sun's at its zenith right now, making those things smell their worst I might add."

"Actually, even at their worst they're still an improvement over a skunk that's been hit by a car, if you think about it anyway."

"Maybe, but you're avoiding the subject."

"It's just really embarrassing Aaron, kind of takes me back to 1990 and my freshman year of High School. I was nothing but a walking cliché of every awkward teenage moment imaginable that year."

"Yea, 1990 sucked all right. I would've given my left nut to have been back in high school, though." The expression on his face was momentarily desolate, halting the laughter his words had threatened to inspire.

"That's kind of drastic, why would you say that?"

"I'll answer your question when you answer mine."

"But that's blackmail!"

"Blackmail's an ugly word, I kinda prefer extortion," he said grinning.

"Oh all right, but remember, you asked for it. Tara was regaling me with tales of your heroism and bravery," she said, getting a devilish glint in her eye when she saw his smile broaden. "Then she went on to tell me all about how you and Matthew are wildly in love with her and that as soon as she's healed up some more the three of you are gonna get your grooves on together. I think they call something like that a threesome, don't they?" she asked, doing her best, Marilyn Monroe dumb blonde impersonation.

"She said what!"

His horrified yelp had Emily laughing so hard that Aaron went in for the kill, pouncing on her and tickling her sides. "No, stop! Please!" she begged.

"Are you going to tell me the truth this time?" he demanded with a chuckle of his own.

"Yes!" she squealed, trying to dodge his hands.

"All right then," he said, sitting back on his heels so he could get a better look at her face, but still straddling her hips so she couldn't go anywhere. "Spill it."

"I was telling you the truth about the heroic tales and that she's under the impression that you and Matthew are totally hot for her. I just sort of, embellished the part at the end."

"God I hope so. If that's the case though, what had you all pissed off then? I swear, when you came stomping back through the office I thought for sure you were gonna kill somebody." His expression suddenly brightened. "You weren't jealous were you?" he teased with a grin.

"Absolutely not!" she declared, reaching up and grabbing a handful of his shirt and pulling him back down towards her. When his mouth was just a breath a way from her own she whispered, "That would imply that there was something between us." They looked into each other's eyes for a split second longer before their lips touched at last. After a few moments, Aaron pulled back.

"This really brings up the age old problem."

"It's not that old, Aaron, and I don't consider its being up a problem," Emily grinned, reaching for his belt buckle.

"No, that's definitely not a problem. It's just that..."

"What?" she asked, slightly perturbed when he moved his hands to still her efforts.

"After the other morning...I don't have any condoms left in my wallet," he admitted rather sheepishly.

"Oh," she replied, pulling her hands away and letting them fall limply to her sides. "That **could** be a problem."

"Yea."

"I wonder...Do you think that department store downstairs has anything?" she asked hesitantly.

He smiled. "Worth a shot. If all else fails, I'll raid the lockers in the security office, there's no telling what those guys left behind," he said as he slowly rose to his feet, reaching down to give her a hand up.

"Last one down the steps is a rotten egg!" she called, sprinting towards the entrance. He dashed after her, all thoughts concerning Jonathan and Tara, the real reasons he'd gone up to the roof in the first place, completely forgotten.

They were in the department store when Thomas finally found them. Emily was in the small pharmacy at the back of the second floor, casually flipping through the limited stock of antibiotics and other medical supplies. Meanwhile, Aaron had located a condom machine in the third floor bathroom, busting open the lock and grabbing a handful of them with a victorious laugh.

"Emily! Have you seen Aaron?" Thomas called out. Her face flushed red over the thought of getting caught searching for condoms.

"Um. No," she called out. "Not since before I went to visit Tara anyway." Mentally she crossed her fingers over the little white lie.

"What are you doing down here?" the guard asked as he walked closer.

"I, uh, thought I'd look for some pain meds for Tara. I mean, she, uh, looked pretty rough when I talked to her," she lied again, quickly grabbing a bottle of vicodin. If there was a hell besides the one that currently occupied the Earth, she was definitely going there, she thought.

"That's really nice of you Emily, but we've got something more important to worry about right now."

"What do you mean," she asked, genuinely confused.

"Aaron was supposed to find you and fill you in on this. Jonathan has completely lost it."

"I thought we already knew that."

"No. It's worse than we thought. He seems to think that we're all like those things down in the streets, that he's the only one left alive. Tara's his main target right now since she's injured, but it's only a matter of time before he tries coming after the rest of us."

"You've got to be kidding me!"

"Wish I was kiddo."

"Emily!" Aaron called out. "I found some..." he trailed off, spotting Thomas.

"Found some what?" the guard asked.

"Huh? Oh, I meant to say I found you, I hadn't expected to see you here Thomas," the other man replied, hastily stuffing condoms into his pockets before the guard caught sight of them. "Kind of took me by surprise you know."

"Right," the older man replied, looking at the couple in front of him. He suspected there was more going on then met the eye, but he wasn't about to say anything, at least, not yet anyway. "Well, we're gonna have to set up shifts to keep an eye on Jonathan all the time, I don't want to take the risk of him coming after us while we sleep."

"Good idea," Aaron said, honestly impressed over the guard's forethought.

"I also think it might be wise to move the girl out of that office, I'm sure the couch is more comfortable than one of those air mattresses for her, but I don't like the idea of our being holed up in such close proximity to Jonathan," Thomas added.

"You're right, you've put some real thought into this haven't you?"

"Just sort of came to me when I was securing the rest of our weapons. We should head back to the others, give them the lowdown," the guard said.

The three of them moved towards the store exit in silence, each lost in their own separate thoughts. Suddenly Thomas stopped, reaching down and picking up something from the floor in front of them.

"What was that man?" Aaron asked.

"Nothing much. I think I just found what you were looking for," he replied, shoving the foil package into the soldier's hand. Seeing the exchange and realizing what it was that Thomas had handed to Aaron, Emily's face went up in flames.

"Hey, I'm gonna go on ahead, take these pain pills up to Tara, you guys can catch up," she said, darting up the steps, taking them two at a time."

"I think you embarrassed her there, Thomas."

"I don't think I'm the cause of her embarrassment, and I really don't think this is the time or the place for you to be having a need for those things. You barely know the girl."

"Gee, thanks for the advice 'Dad,' but she's definitely not a little girl."

"That doesn't change the fact that you hardly know each other. I understand that emotions are running high right now, but that doesn't make it okay for you to try to get in her pants the first opportunity that comes along. You're taking advantage of being in a life or death situation, she probably doesn't know what she's doing. You saw how she reacted when she saw me hand you the one you'd dropped. That poor child must feel terrible right now."

Aaron started laughing, unable to help himself. Anger washed over Thomas' face at his reaction, and the soldier tried desperately to get himself under enough control to explain the situation to the other man. "I'm not laughing at what you're saying Thomas! Really. I understand that you feel a need to protect the girls, it's just that, I'm trying really hard to picture Emily as some kind of childlike victim and it's just not working. I don't think there's been a minute since we all got locked into this building together that she hasn't known exactly what she was doing. Believe me, she may be all woman, that I can't deny, but she also knows how to take care of herself."

"Oh Lord, you've already taken advantage of the girl haven't you?"

"Believe me, there was no advantage taking by anyone, it was strictly consensual, all three times," Aaron said with a smirk, knowing that he was playing with fire as far as the security guard was concerned. "But you have to admit that I'm right about her knowing how to take care of herself."

Thomas couldn't help but think about that first night, before Aaron and Matthew had even arrived. Emily had shown herself damn capable in the stairwell, terrified of what they might have run into in the stairwell, but accompanying him anyway, refusing to let him go alone. She also knew the ins and outs of handling a firearm too. But she was also so close in age to what his own daughter would have been, and he was helpless against the fatherly protective impulse he felt for her. "We'll discuss this later, in the mean time, I need you to start thinking with your other head and helping me make sure that that fruit cake upstairs doesn't kill us all," the guard said angrily.

Aaron decided to play along, seeing no reason to antagonize the older man any further, even though he was far from being a teenager deserving of such a lecture. They were all going to have to work together if they were going to get out of this thing alive after all, so there was no point in burning bridges he might need later.


	10. The Arrival

"Why don't one of you guys just go ahead and shoot the crazy sonuvabitch and get it over with? Or at the very least you could push him out a window or something if it's a matter of you wanting to save on the ammo."

"Tara, do the words 'cold-blooded murder' mean anything to you?" Thomas asked in bemusement.

"Yea, I totally get what that means, but come on, he's nuts! I mean, hello, he kinda wants to kill us all. We should get him before he gets us. And it's not like anyone is gonna arrest us or something for doing it. I say what's one more dead body out there. The streets are already crawling with them. Literally even."

"Just because the world's in chaos out there, it doesn't give us the right to just turn our backs on the fundamental foundation of our civilization."

"Okay, and now you just lost me. How is killing a crazy fat man, who wants us all dead, gonna be a collapse of civilization?" the teen asked in confusion. "We don't have no civilization anymore."

"It's against the ten commandments, thou shalt not kill. And that was a double negative."

"Um...hello, self-defense. Duh. People almost always got off using that kind of defense on TV. And what's a double negative?"

"What?"

"That double negative thingy. What's that?"

"No, I mean, what the hell are you talking about self-defense and television."

"You know, like Law and Order, and all those courty, lawyery kinda shows. They always had people claiming self-defense when they killed other people and a bunch of them got off."

"That was television Tara, this is real life."

"Yea, and if you're trying to scare me about breaking the ten commandments and eternal damnation and all that Pat Robertson shit it's not gonna work. Take a look outside. I don't know about you, but I'm about as close to eternal damnation as it's possible to get right now, and I gotta tell ya, I'm not liking it so much."

"Not to take sides, but she's definitely got the right idea about that," Aaron said from the doorway of the security office. He stood there, arms loaded with foodstuffs they were slowly moving into the cramped security office.

"Thank you," Tara said, flashing him a beaming smile. Aaron shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.

"So, where'd Emily disappear to?" he asked, clearing his throat and trying to focus Tara's attention on something other than him.

"Up on the roof...with Matthew," the teen queen declared mischievously.

"On the roof?"

"Yes."

"With Matthew."

"Uh, yea. What part of 'on the roof with Matthew' didn't you get the first time I said it?"

"What are they up there for?" the soldier asked darkly.

"Maybe they're just having a good time," she purred, enjoying the look of jealousy on his face. He'd be the perfect ally.

"Emily's up there with some binoculars," Thomas interjected, trying to put an end to Tara's teasing.

"She still thinks there's someone else left alive out there, doesn't she?" Aaron commented, not really expecting an answer.

"We all need something to give us a little bit of hope. If this works for her, than so be it," the guard replied anyway. "In the meantime, we've got work of our own to do."

"Yea, right," Aaron muttered as Thomas left the room. "All the more reason for little Mattie to have his ass down here."

"Don't worry so much, Barry's with them.You can trust me when I tell you that he won't let Matthew try to cock block you. At least not much, unless it cuts into his entertainment out of the whole situation."

"Tara, you're a fucking ray of sunshine today. Really. It's almost got me wishing we'd left your ass on top of that elevator car."

"That's not very nice. And with me here, ready to help you with your little...problem."

"Just what in the hell do you have in mind little girl. I don't do jail bait."

"Again with the harsh words. Look, the way I see it, we both have the same kind of problem here and it's gonna be to our advantage to work together instead of against each other."

"Huh?"

"You want Emily. I want Matthew. It's that easy. I help keep him away from her, and you do the same. Simple."

"Everybody wins. Is that what you think?"

"Absol..."

"There's people on the streets!" Barry shouted, bursting through the door.

"We know, and they're all dead," huffed Tara.

"No. It's a bus! I mean, someone is driving one of those big ass charter bus things down the goddamn street! And they're heading this way even!"

"What's all the commotion?" Thomas demanded from the doorway, almost getting knocked down by Aaron in the latter's rush to get to the roof.

"There's a bus coming this way," he uttered, pushing his way by.

"Barry, stay here with Tara. Lock the door, don't open it until we get back," Thomas ordered.

"But.."

"Just do it!" he commanded, bolting after Aaron.

Up on the rooftop, Matthew and Emily stood, talking excitedly to each other. They no longer needed the binoculars they had carelessly perched atop the roof's edge as they watched the bus move progressively closer to the building, driving over any of the dead in its path. A herd of other dead were moving in a pack behind the bus.

"There's got to be a way toget on that bus," insisted Emily. "This is the chance to get out of here that we've all been waiting for."

"And then what? Do you think the fuel tank on that thing is limitless? We don't even know where they came from, how long they've been on the run, nothing. The best thing to do would be to try and get them up here."

The noise of Aaron bursting onto the rooftop prevented Emily from answering. "What's the news?" he asked without preamble.

"Looks like some kind of charter bus, other than that, not much to tell," Matthew said stiffly.

"Thomas is gonna try to raise them on the CB radio, it shouldn't take too long once he gets back to the office. We were half way up here before we even thought about it."

"So then what?" Matthew asked, feeling territorial with the way Aaron came up and wrapped an arm around Emily.

"I think we should get out of here while we have the chance," Emily told them.

"Too risky. We've got the wounded girl to think about. Even if there was a way to safely get us down to the street and onto the bus, I don't think she'd make it."

"He's right Emily. I didn't even think about that."

Emily's face fell, escape had seemed so close just minutes before, now it appeared to be just another dream. "So what's the use of contacting them?"

"To get them into the building," Thomas said as he joined them. "I managed to raise the driver on the radio, he said they're low on fuel, need a place to hole up."

"Okay, I'll bite. How?" Aaron asked skeptically.

"They said the bus has an emergency exit in the roof, they should be able to pull right up under the fire escape and climb to safety."

"What's going to keep those things from getting in here then?" the soldier replied.

"You really think those things can climb up the side of a bus?"

"It's not outside the realm of possibility," Emily said softly. "And some of those buses do have those ladder things, like on a mobile home, they let you get up onto the roof."

"We'll worry about that when the time comes. Meantime, I think Aaron and I should get into position on the fire escape, provide some cover fire for them," Thomas declared, unslinging the pair of rifles he'd brought up to the roof with him.

"I can help too."

"Emily, no, I know you said you know how to shoot, but this is different."

"How? And think real carefully before you answer Thomas, I never would have pegged you as a sexist."

"It's not that..." he stammered, trying unsuccessfully to avoid her eyes. "Okay... It's... I just don't want any more deaths on my hands. Not a woman. Not if I can prevent it," he murmured.

"You haven't caused anyone to die Thomas," she said, reaching out a hand towards him, confusion written all over her face.

"I could have done more to try to save people. That first day. It's been taking me back to 'Nam. There was this village..."

"Okay, not to detract from this little bleeding heart tale, but if we're gonna save a busload of people we need to move. Now."

As if punctuating his statement, Aaron briskly grabbed one of the rifles from Thomas' grasp, along with some extra ammunition from his belt, and strode towards the fire escape. The guard ran a shaky hand over his face, sighing. "He's right. We don't have time for this. Emily, do whatever you feel you have to."

The bus was so close they could hear the hiss of the air breaks as it slowed and prepared to turn into the ally. Aaron had already positioned himself on the fire escape, carefully taking aim as the bus at last came to a stop, its roof exit already open, and a young girl being hefted out. Thomas and Emily took up firing positions as well, and the three of them worked to keep as many of the charging dead at bay as they could. The terrified girl tried climbing back into the bus when the shots first rang out, but was blocked by the emergence of an equally young boy. Emily called out to them, trying to coax them towards the fire escape, but it wasn't until yet a third person appeared on the roof of the bus that the kids finally began to ascend the steps.

In short order, the eight people from the bus stood on the roof, looking down at the bus and the swarming dead. "There's really just the eight of you?" Emily asked hesitantly. It just seemed so unfair, so few survivors.

"Yea. We had a few more of us, back the last time we tried to stop for fuel. They didn't make it," Allen, the bus' driver explained.

"Is anyone injured?" Matthew asked, stepping into his EMT mode again. Somehow it was easier to deal with everything when he could give himself a purpose.

"Vicki over there, one of those things managed to get a hold of her arm, cut her up a bit," the bus driver said.

"It's just a little scratch. That's all," the woman said, brushing off their concern.

"Ma, you should have it looked at," a surly teen, who couldn't have been much older than Tara, chided. "It was really bleeding earlier, I didn't think it was ever gonna stop."

"Justin, I've told you before, I'm all right. Jesse and Jamie are the ones to worry about. They really need some food and some rest, this has all been so hard for them," she said, kneeling down and wrapping her arms around the two kids that had been the first off the bus. The girl, Jamie, hid her face in the woman's shoulder. Jesse squirmed and tried to move away, wanting to appear as tough as he imagined Justin did.

"I'm just glad to be off that fucking bus," blurted out the remaining female passenger. "Even this fucking roof is an improvement over that thing. God, the smell coming from the crapper alone was enough to make you want to puke."

"Natalie," snapped Vicki. "There are children here!" The younger woman just rolled her eyes, a cigarette seemingly materializing in her hand in the process. She gave the older woman an icy stare as she lit up, casually blowing the smoke in her direction.

The final person from the bus had caught Aaron's attention. He was roughly the same age as the soldier, seemed to be keeping his distance from the others, and despite the warmth of the afternoon, he persisted in wearing a light jacket. It was his face that stood out the most, a jagged scar slanting down beneath his left eye, beginning just above the cheekbone and ending beneath his jawline somewhere. The scar was puckered and pink, indicating it was a fairly new wound. The two men met each other's eyes.

"Well I'll be goddamned," the stranger muttered. "You're a sight for sore eyes here Sarge."

"Good to see you too LT. Never heard what happened to you...after the medevac..." he trailed of, gesturing weakly towards the scar.

"Yea, I know. Prettier than ever. Trust me, the rest of it looks much worse," he said with a grin. At Emily's questioning look he supplied, "First Lieutenant Sean Malloy. The Sarge here, he saved my ass in Iraq about4 months ago. I was just on my way to Ft. Pastor when this hit. It was going to be my first duty station since they finally let me go from Walter Reed."

"So Aaron's been a pretty busy boy saving your ass," she replied. "That's good. Now let's hope he can keep it safe a little longer."


	11. A Meeting of Minds

The general mood throughout the office was one of jubilation. At last, proof stood before them that there were other survivors in this ruin of a city. Even Jonathan put in an appearance, drawn by the noise and excitement generated by the new arrivals.

"The dead have arrived and you're just welcoming them in with open arms. You should have let me take care of them when there was still time. It's too late now. Too late. Too late," he muttered repeatedly, hugging his rifle tightly to his chest. Aaron and Thomas both had pulled their own weapons out at the first sight of the crazy man, and now stood defensively in front of the new arrivals. But Jonathan just continued to mutter to himself, in a voice barely above a whisper, rocking from side to side as he did.

"Is there something we should know about here, Sarge?" Sean asked, stepping forward to join the soldier and the guard.

"This is Jonathan. I guess you could say he's not really playing with a full deck of cards anymore. The situation's been a little too much for him to deal with, he just cracked under the strain," Aaron explained, watching as Jonathan began to back away, undoubtedly retreating to his office once more.

"Right. So you thought it might be a good idea to give him a rifle. Is that it?"

"That's sorta our fault," Emily spoke up defensively. "The first night we were here, before Matthew and Aaron showed up, he was still pretty much normal. For a suit anyway."

"Normal for a suit?" the LT replied, the bare trace of a grin lighting his face.

"You know. A suit. Management type," she tried to explain. "Anyway, he seemed relatively normal when we decided to raid the arms in the security office and do a sweep of the building, make sure everything was secure. The mental breakdown came later, and by that point it was a little too late to get him disarmed, at least not without risk to the rest of us."

"And you just let that foolishness continue Sarge?"

"It was under control. We were in the process of isolating the mark away from the rest of the civilians. I was going to take him down and avoid any collateral damage, but you arrived before I could finish the job. Sir."

Emily looked at the soldier in amazement. Who the hell was he to be making secret plans of shooting Jonathan without even bothering to talk to the rest of them about it. Not that any of them would have really protested the idea, at least not very strongly. But still, the first chance she had him alone, the gloves were comin' off and she was going to be kicking a little ass, metaphorically speaking of course. The look on his face when he shot her a quick glance told her that he knew exactly what she was thinking. With that in mind, it took her by complete surprise when he pulled her out of the security office as Matthew was tending to Vicki's arm, and the rest of the newcomers were getting introduced to Tara and Barry.

"We've got ourselves a serious problem."

"What's this we stuff? As far as I can tell 'Mister Lone Ranger I'm gonna shoot everyone and not even bother discussing it,' the problem is all yours."

"Look, I know I probably deserve that for trying to save a little face in front of the LT like that, but this is something else entirely, and it's all of our problem."

His words had her attention now, just not how he'd hoped. "What do you mean trying to save face in front of the LT?"

"That after all the time we've been here I just let things with Jonathan continue at their status quo instead of at least disarming him. I couldn't bring myself to admit it in front of the LT."

"Why? Because you weren't acting like some kind of super soldier?"

"Little bit. But can we get back to something more important now?"

"More important than what could lead to some potentially hot make-up sex?"

He shook his head sadly. "Let's just shelve the make-up sex thoughts until after we take care of the problem at hand. Once that's dealt with I am more than ready, willing and able."

She grinned. "Okay, shoot."

"We've got to get rid of Vicki."

"You can't be serious."

"She's more dangerous than Jonathan right now, or at least she's gonna be."

"Aaron, that's insane. She's fine!"

"No. She may look like it right now, but she's far from it. That scratch on her arm is a death sentence. It's only a matter of time before she's dead. If we don't handle it first, then she'll be one of the walking dead, and we're all fucked then."

"No. It's a scratch, not a bite. The way you're talking, my god. You sound almost as crazy and paranoid as Jonathan right now. Is he starting to get contagious or something?"

"Look, when I was at Pastor. I saw some things..."

"What are you trying to say Aaron? Just spit it out."

"It's not just the bites that will kill someone and turn them into one of those things. A scratch that draws blood, or even just breaks the skin is enough to infect someone. And once that happens, there's no way to stop it."

"How can you possibly know that Aaron?"

"I was assigned to a top secret unit at Fort Pastor, studying the potential uses of chemical agents in warfare."

"Chemical weaponry! Isn't that what the whole war in Iraq was supposed to be about? Weapons of mass destruction. And this country's opposition towards them!"

He hung his head, reluctant to meet her eyes. "I was told that we were studying the potential uses of chemical agents in order to protect ourselves against them. It would be hard for a terrorist to try to take out an entire Army using bioweapons if the soldiers in question were already immune to the chemical."

"Okay, while I admit that there is a certain logic to that scenario, can you honestly tell me that everything that was going on there was strictly for defensive purposes? And what the hell kind of chemical weaponry brings the dead back to life!"

His silence answered her question. "Don't be too hard on the Sarge, Emily. He was just one of the drones in the lab. A little worker bee, just doing what he was told and not part of the inner intelligence circle."

The two both turned, startled, and faced Sean. "You said you were on the way to your new posting at Pastor, why didn't you tell me where?" Aaron demanded.

"Didn't seem important at the time. Besides, you weren't very forthcoming about it yourself. And I'm sure you would understand that any information regarding my involvement in the project was strictly on a need to know basis."

"I don't believe what I'm hearing here. In case you guys didn't notice, the Army is just a little bit defunct right now. And instead of telling us what you know, you two are prancing around trying having your own private 'who's got the biggest dick' kind of contest with your fuckin' top secret lab talk. Now I want some answers, and I want them now!"

"Damn Sarge, I didn't think ballsy, man-eating women were your type. Whatever happened to that Hooters waitress?"

"Trust me, the man-eating part is one of her more endearing qualities. And the Hooters chick...way fuckin' overrated man."

"Enough with the macho bullshit. I want to know what you know about this infection."

"It's a chemical compound we were developing that showed promise in the area of speeding up cell regeneration in damaged tissues," Sean explained.

"Fine. Now say it again in English."

"We were working on designing a chemical compound that would help speed up cell regrowth in damaged tissues. You've heard about those bandages that the soldiers carry with them in the field, the ones that are designed to clot blood faster?"

"Yea."

"This was intended to work in a similar life saving fashion. A chemical that could be either administered through an IV or potentially incorporated into the bandage materials to accelerate cellular regeneration. That means it would speed tissue regrowth, promote healing and reduce convalescence time. Imagine how many lives could be saved if we could start repairing the damage even before an injured soldier made it back to the field hospital from the front lines."

"So if this wonder drug is supposed to do all that why is it killing people and turning them into cannibals?"

"Cannibalism really is an improper term in this instance. It implies that those things are still human."

"Excuse me? I didn't realize we were arguing semantics here."

"What the hell is going on out here?" demanded Thomas.

"That would depend on how much you heard," the Lieutenant said blandly.

"Just that little bit about cannibalism."

"Oh, let me do a quick re-cap for you," Emily quipped, narrowing her eyes at the two soldiers. "It's seems GI Joe and his little boyfriend Captain Chaos over here want to kill that new woman, Vicki. And they know what it is that caused all this fucked up shit going on out there in the streets, in fact, they were in on it from the beginning," she finished bitterly. "Did I miss anything boys?"

"Nobody is killing anyone," Thomas enunciated tersely.

"I know the idea of killing someone, seemingly in cold blood, goes against all that boy scout, rent-a-cop training, but you have to understand something here, it's either that woman or us. There's no other choice," Sean reasoned.

"There's always another choice," the older man argued.

"Did you see her injury?"

"I don't see what difference that makes."

"Did you see the injury?"

"Yes! Dammit, is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Good. She was scratched before sunrise this morning, right before we made our escape from the bus garage on that rolling death trap. That means it's been about eight hours. Eight hours of the infection slowly entering her blood stream. She complained about it bleeding excessively, especially for such a little scratch. That's what all the minor scratches did at first. Then the ache begins, nothing major, just a dull throb leading into some serious itching. It's kind of misleading, like your average cut that begins to itch as it scabs over and heals. Once it reaches the itching phase, that's when you begin noticing what we call the spiderwebs."

"Spiderwebs?" Thomas prodded.

"Right. The veins leading away from the injured area all seem to become pronounced, almost black in color. The pattern takes on kind of a spiderweb kind of look, at least that's what those of us who have seen it describe it as. It's almost as if the infection poisons the blood, but we think that's what keeps it from coagulating completely after death. After that, the appearance of cold, clammy skin isn't unusal, but more often than not, it's just the slow death of every part of your body on a cellular level."

"Other than the excessive bleeding, I haven't seen Vicki exhibiting anything else like the symptoms you described. She's not gonna turn into one of those things," the guard insisted. There was the sound of someone clearing their throat from behind them.

"If I'd known we were all having a meeting out here I would have finished up with the wounded sooner," Matthew said.

"How is everyone?" Emily asked, terrified of what the answer would be.

"The young woman, the teen and the kids all seem to be fine, just a little scared out of their minds. The bus driver looks like he might have a mild sprain to his ankle. I can't believe he climbed up those steps the way he did. The mom is the only one showing any real sign of injury. There's a scratch on her arm that she says happened when they were loading on the bus this morning. One of those things was in the garage area, scraped her arm as she was loading her kids on board. Before Captain America here put a bullet through it's head, anyway."

"Just a run of the mill scrape, that's all?" Aaron asked.

"Yes and no. It's just a normal scratch, maybe about an inch, inch and half long, but it's already got a tremendous infection. I've given her some of the penicillin that was down in the pharmacy, but we'll want to keep an eye on it that it doesn't get any worse."

"Is that not normal? The infection I mean," Emily asked.

"It's not unusual for a scrape like that to become infected, especially when you consider what the conditions are like outside and the fact that there was a delay in getting it cleaned up and bandaged. But I've never seen one get this bad so fast. Weirder yet, there's no fever. I've never seen a wound infected that bad that wasn't accompanied by some kind of fever."

"We're gonna have to act fast," Sean said, pulling a 9mm pistol from where it had been concealed in the waistband of his pants near his spine.

"Just what the fuck do you have in mind?" demanded the medic, his eyes widening as he saw the gun.

"She's infected, we have to neutralize her."

"Neutralize her! Why don't you just come out and say you're gonna fucking kill her. Just corner her like some kind of wild animal and blow her fucking head off!" Emily said, near hysterical in her anger.

"You're not going to just blow her away like that, she's got a son in there, plus her niece and nephew," Thomas said, drawing his own weapon.

"Let's be reasonable here," Matthew said, stepping between the two armed men. "If she is going to become one of those things, we'll have to take care of her, eventually. But not before we know for sure that it's going to happen. In the meantime, I think the best thing to do is move her into one of those empty offices towards the back of the dating service. She'll be isolated away from the rest of the group, and we'll keep someone on guard the whole time."

"But the offices...that's just so close to Jonathan," murmured Emily.

"We'll be dealing with him too," Sean declared, checking the rounds in his pistol.

A/N: So, obviously we know who the first victim is going to be, now the question is, can you guess who she'll take with her?

D.S.


	12. Hero?

A/N: Warning: This chapter is really going to bounce around from various locations in the building, with various characters and no warning. Flashbacks may also occur. Be prepared.

"Vicki, the twins, are they yours?" Emily asked, already knowing the answer, but trying to keep the woman's mind off what was happening to her, what was going to happen to her.

"No, they're my... niece and nephew... my sister Anna's kids," she said, her breathing becoming labored. In the few hours since the bus had arrived, her condition had deteriorated rapidly. The so-called spider webs that Sean had described now spread through most of her body, giving her the look of one of the undead already. Her skin had taken on an almost grayish, deathly pallor, and her eyes no longer seemed capable of focusing. "Please...can't I just...see them...see my son...just one more time?"

"Matthew doesn't think it's safe, that's why he insisted you say good-bye earlier, so you'd have...one last chance," the younger woman finished hoarsely, trying hard to keep the tears forming in her eyes from spilling.

"I know that it's...for the best...I just wish..."

"Shh...you really should save your strength Vicki."

"For what?...Gonna die...no matter what."

"Emily, I think it's time you went back to the others," Thomas said quietly. He was seated in a chair beside the door, his pistol sitting in his lap as he waited. Emily nodded, gratefully rising to her feet, ready to flee the room that already smelled of death and decay, although it may have been her imagination. As she reached for the door handle, Vicki made one last plea.

"Emily...Promise me...promise me you'll look after...the children for me."

"I already promised you that, remember?" she replied, rushing through the door, unable to look at the dying woman.

Thomas remained impassive and silent throughout the exchange, reflexively gripping the handle of his gun. He'd declared himself to be Vicki's executioner, setting and waiting for her to die so that he could kill her a second time. It was the only way he could convince the others to let her live out the short time remaining in her life, to give her the chance to say her good-byes to what remained of her family. That had been the important thing to him, with so many dead roaming the streets who'd never had that opportunity themselves.

He listened to the slow, steady rasp of her breathing. It signaled to him that she was at least still partially alive anyway. As he listened, he thought of the last few hours that had lead up to this moment.

"_Vicki, listen, we're going to move you into one of the offices over in the dating service. They've got some nice executive ones over there with sofas so you'll be able to lay down and rest more comfortably," Emily said, elected by the others to provide a reasonable excuse for the move that would segregate the woman from the rest of the group._

"_Yea Mom. We'll get a nice cushy office to relax in. Maybe it'll have some video games or somethin' that we can play there," Justin said, trying to keep the concern out of his voice. A mere hour since they'd arrived, and his mother was already beginning to exhibit the spider web pattern on her arm, radiating out from the small scratch. _

"_I think we should get your Mom settled in first, let me get a good look at her arm, change the bandages, see if there was anything I might have overlooked before you and the twins join her Justin," Matthew quickly interjected. Although the teen looked skeptical, he'd let it pass. The medic was the unfortunate one elected to break the news to her, although Emily accompanied him to help provide moral support. She wasn't really sure if the support was for Vicki or Matthew though. Thomas had walked silently along behind them, listening. For now he was just an observer._

"_So do you want me to take the bandages off?" Vicki asked, curious, and not just a little nervous over the way the two people stood silently in the room._

"_There really isn't any need for that," Matthew replied, grateful for the momentary reprieve. How did you go about telling someone they were going to die, and then come back to life and try to eat people. It wasn't exactly something they'd covered during his EMT training._

"_So...what are we doing here then? Why couldn't my kids come with us?"_

"_Vicki, how much do you know about those...things that are outside right now?" Emily asked._

"_About the same as the rest of us I suppose. They were people once, but then they got bit by others like them. Now they're dead, and if they catch you, they'll eat you. That's kind of the re-cap of the news reports Justin gave me anyway."_

"_You didn't hear them yourself?" Emily asked curiously._

"_I don't really watch television much at home, and by the time he finally got me to look, I just watched long enough to find out where the nearest rescue station was and then we were out the door. I just thought he was just watching one of those zombie movie things and teasing me that it was real, so most of the day I kept working on my spring cleaning. I've always been so terrified of those horror movies, and he's been trying to trick me into watching them ever since his Dad let him watch his first one when he was little. It all seems so silly now, I guess I should have taken him more seriously."_

"_There's a little bit more to it than that," Matthew said slowly. "It's not just the bites that can turn you into one of them."_

"_What are you..." A look of comprehension crossed her face as she realized what he was implying. "I'm going to become one of them. That's why you're doing this, isn't it?"_

"_I'm afraid so."_

"_How..How long do I have," _

"_We don't really know for sure, but with the way the way the infection seems to be spreading," he gestured towards the dark veins that spread up past the bandages he'd applied earlier, "I think it's going to be fairly quick."_

"_So you two, you're here to, uh, 'take care of me.' Right? Make sure I don't have the chance to kill any of you. I feel so stupid," she moaned, shaking her head. "That's the reason you moved me down here isn't it? So you could kill me without my kids seeing it. Ease you're conscious a little."_

"_It's not like that," insisted Emily. "We are going to have to shoot you, eventually. But we've all agreed that we'll wait until we're certain you're actually going to come back. Thomas has volunteered to wait it out with you, and we'll give you the opportunity to say good-bye to the kids..."_

"_How generous," Vicki sneered bitterly. "You'll **allow** me to say good-bye to my own son, my niece and nephew."_

"_I'm sorry, I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am," Matthew told her. "But it's the best that we can offer. If we don't prepare for the worst, we could all die. Do you really want that to happen to **your **kids?"_

_Tears began to fall silently down her face. "Promise me you'll take care of them. That you won't let this happen to them."_

"_I promise, we'll do everything in our power to keep them safe," Thomas said, stepping at last into the room._

"_I want to say my good-byes now."_

With a start, Thomas pulled himself back from his thoughts, slowly comprehending that the steady rasp of Vicki's breathing had stopped. Turning his attention swiftly towards the sofa, his heart skipped a beat...she was gone. Then, he heard the eerie snarl coming from his left. "Sonuva..." he grappled to get a firm grip on his pistol, but it was too late. In the space of a heart beat, she lunged, tackling him to the ground and tearing out his throat. Blood from his torn jugular shot across the room.

Up on the rooftop, Sean and Aaron were in deep discussion about what they were going to do now that they had a possible means of escape They'd chosen the roof for a private meeting, looking to avoid the prying ears of the others, so of course Emily sent Barry up there to eavesdrop. Ostensibly he was there to keep the twins and Justin occupied until their mother had been taken care of, but nobody was really fooled by the plan. Inside, Matthew, Emily and Tara remained in the security office with the rest of the new arrivals.

"So why didn't we just shoot her as soon as we found out about the damn scratch? Or at least once she said good-bye to those kids? You people are all gonna get me killed!" wailed Tara. She was in full drama-queen mode now.

"Do you think you could be a little more self-centered or cold-blooded?" replied Emily.

"I don't want to die!"

"Right, and I'm sure Vicki woke up this morning and said, 'Hmmm. You know, I think today just might be a good day to die.' And maybe while she was at it she thought about how much fun it would be, dying a long, slow death while surrounded by complete strangers," Emily told her angrily.

"Sure, and why not go for the trifecta while she's at it. Come back from the dead and eat what remains of your loved ones too," Matthew added, not even skipping a beat.

"Look, why is everyone ganging up on me, I'm the injured girl, remember? And I'm just saying what we're all thinking."

"Lord deliver me if that's what you think is going through my mind," Allen interjected, quietly. The bus driver hadn't had much to say up to this point.

"Score another one for the good guys," smirked Emily. She was still smarting over that whole final exchange with Vicki, scared to death about how they would ever uphold the promise Thomas had made her. Until she got over it, nobody was going to be safe from her verbal attacks.

"Well if we're taking a vote on this, I'm with the cripple chick. If the old broad was as good as dead, why not put her out of her misery before she tries to hurt us? It's not rocket science people," Natalie chimed in. She was seated behind the Thomas' desk, her feet resting on the desk top, the chair tilted back on two legs.

"Who are you calling a cripple!" Tara cried indignantly.

"If we shoot her as soon as she comes back we won't be in any more danger than we have been at any other time," Matthew replied, ignoring Tara's indignant outburst. He was beginning to wish he'd followed Barry up to the roof to baby-sit the kids.

Emily rolled her eyes, rising to her feet and pacing across the cramped room until she reached the desk. "The decision has already been made so there's no point in arguing about it any more. At least some of us can put others needs ahead of our own."

"Yea, you don't have to tell us some of ya'll are a bunch of bleeding heart suckers," Natalie said, leaning back in the chair with a smirk on her face. In response, Emily 'nudged' Natalie's feet, which were still propped up on the desk, causing the other woman to lose her balance and fall crashing to the floor.

"Bitch! What the hell was that for?"

"Oops."

"Emily, why don't you go see how Barry's doing with the kids," Matthew interceded. With a final glare at Natalie, she nodded and walked out of the office. For his part, Matthew inwardly cringed. Three alpha females trapped in one little office, it was going to be like dealing with a non-stop case of PMS. Thank god only one of them was armed.

As Emily stormed out of the security office, she completely missed the door of the dating service closing. "I don't know if this is such a good idea," Jamie said to her brother hesitantly. He'd convinced her to sneak away from the roof and find their Aunt Vicki.

"Whatsa matter? You scared?" Jesse goaded.

"It's creepy here. And Aunt Vicki said she was going to be going away and we wouldn't be able to see her no more," his twin whispered.

"She's not going anywhere, she's dying!"

Tears welled up in Jamie's eyes at his outburst. "I wish Mom was here."

"Well she's not, and Aunt Vicki's dying so that means I'm in charge since I'm the oldest."

"You're only five minutes older than me, and we're not in charge of anything."

"Am so."

"Are not."

"Am So!"

"Are Not!"

They probably would have continued with their fight for a long time if it hadn't been for the sound of twin snarls coming from down the long hallway.

"Th..that sounded like one of those things," Jamie yelped in terror.

"It can't be," her brother answered, hoping against hope that just by saying the words out loud it would make them be true. The sound of running feet wiped that hope from his mind. As what was left of Vicki and Thomas came running into view, the twins were frozen in terror, unable to anything more than scream.

The scream echoed through the office, loud enough to reach the security office and the door to the stairwell that Emily was just about to go through. Instead, she turned and sprinted towards the sound, literally crashing into Matthew and he burst out of the security office. By the time they got to their feet they'd heard two single shots fired, and the screams were over.

"What the fuck!" Matthew yelled, scrambling to his feet, Emily hot on his heels.

_The sound of children screaming brought Jonathan out of his office, ever-present gun in hand. Running towards the sound, he caught sight of the two dead people when they were just mere feet from the children. He quickly raised his rifle taking careful aim. "You bastards! You may have gotten Phil, but you can't have his children too!" _

_He fired two shots in quick succession, each one catching the two corpses squarely through the backs of their heads, blood, brains, and bone exploding from their heads and raining down onto the terrified kids. The now totally lifeless bodies dropped with a loud thud to the floor, the kids, no longer screaming, but clinging to each other. They watched with huge eyes as Jonathan walked towards them, gun still firmly in hand._


	13. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Moments after the shots fired, Matthew and Emily came rushing into cube land. They were met with the sight of Jonathan, his rifle raised in the ready position, and the twins cowering directly in his sights. The bodies of both Vicki and Thomas sprawled on the floor between them.

"Put the fucking gun down you crazy sonuvabitch!" Emily yelled, pulling out her own weapon as she did. Her actions had the opposite effect than what she'd planned though. Instead of getting the kids out of danger, it got worse.

"Die you monsters!" Jonathan hollered, firing wildly over the kids' heads towards Emily and Matthew. "Sammy! Cynthia! Run to me now! I won't let the monsters get you!" he called to the terrified kids. Jamie had let out a shrill scream when the last shots had fired, diving to the floor and clawing at her brother's legs, trying to get him to join her. It didn't take much encouragement to get him to join her.

"Jesse, Jamie, listen to me,Ineed you to crawl into the closest cubicle and hide under the desk," Matthew called out, crouching in the doorway of the nearest cubicle. "Can you do that for me kids?" He watched as both Emily and the kids carefully crawled out of the line of fire by way of response.

"Sammy! Cynthia! I insist you come to me! I'm the only one who can save you now!" Jonathan commanded. His eyes were wild, and spit was forming in the corners of his mouth, if he'd been an animal, Emily would have sworn he was rabid. "Don't trust the monsters! They just want to make you like them!"

"Emily?" Jamie cried out hesitantly, peaking through the cubicle doorway, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Shhh...It's going to be okay honey. I just need you and your brother to stay in the cube. Do what Matthew said and get under the desk. Jesse? Did you hear me? Get under the desk, get as low to the floor as you can and keep your heads down." She tried to keep her voice calm to lend courage to the kids, not that Jonathan was making it too difficult for her to appear the sane, safe one.

"Sammy! Cynthia! I'm warning you, if you don't come to me now, the monsters will get you. If the monsters get you..." he shook his head wildly. "The monsters can't get you, I won't allow it. But they want to, oh how they want to. The longer you wait the worse it will be. Come to me NOW!" he screamed so loudly that it echoed throughout the entire office. His fingers squeezed reflexively on the trigger, the shot punctuating his words.

"Jonathan? You need to take a chill man," Matthew said, wanting to calm the other man down, but not really knowing how to do it.And his attemptonly earned him another round from the rifle.

"Jonathan? You keep talking to Sammy and Cynthia, who's that?" Emily called out, half expecting another shot in her direction. In amazement, she listened not to the sound of a rifle blast, but to a semi-coherent, if irrational, reply.

"The children. Sammy and Cynthia. Phil's children. I was too weak to save their Daddy, but I won't fail them too. It's up to me now, there's nobody else. That's why they have to come with me now. I can protect them, keep them safe from you monsters."

Keeping her voice as level as possible, she tried to get him to understand what he was doing. "I know you feel guilty about the way Phil died Jonathan, but these aren't his kids. Vicki, the dead woman on the floor, the kids are her niece and nephew. We're not monsters, we're alive, just like you, just like the children. Put down the rifle and we'll all walk away okay, I promise you."

"But that's impossible. Phil didn't have a sister," he said, confusion filling his voice. "You're just trying to trick me, you want the children to become like you!" A shot rang out once more.

"It's no use Em, I don't think you're going to convince him that those kids aren't who he thinks they are," Matthew called quietly.

"So what? We're just supposed to let him take the kids? Is that your idea of a plan?"

"That won't be necessary," Sean's voice said quietly, as he walked right into plain sight, facing Jonathan from about 10 feet away. Even before he'd finished speaking, he'd pulled his pistol from where it was hidden in his waistband and fired. The bullet caught Jonathan squarely between his eyes and his body dropped to the ground. The kids, who'd been peeking out of the cube just in time to see Jonathan fall, began screaming again, and Emily dashed to their cube, falling to her knees and pulling them into her arms.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Matthew demanded, mostly out of shock from seeing Jonathan's corpse fall, nearly sprawled out behind the others that already littered the floor. The dead man's eyes stared, unseeing, towards where Matthew stood, and the medic had this overwhelming feeling that it was accusing him of something, like it was somehow his fault that Sean had shot him.

"Taking care of a problem none of the rest of you seemed to have the balls to do."

Silence met his words, with the exception of the twins' still hysterical crying. Natalie and Allen, who arrived just in time to see Sean shoot Jonathan stood uncertainly near the door. Finally, Natalie moved forward to help Emily with the kids. Scooping Jesse into her arms as if he was a baby rather than a 9-year old, she announced, "Let's get them out of here, they shouldn't have to keep seeing the b-o-d-i-e-s."

Sniffling loudly, Jesse managed to choke out, "You can go ahead and say it. Bodies. We can spell you know, we're not little babies."

"Of course you're not kiddo," Natalie told him. "I'm just trying to keep myself from feeling old ya' know. What with two big kids like you around." She smiled at him, and he buried his face into her shoulder, sobbing loudly again. Her smile faltering, she acknowledged silently to herself that even if they made it out of all this alive, the twins would never be kids again, not really.

Lot's of arguments and tears later, an eerie silence spread throughout the office. Sean and Aaron had handled the impromptu 'burial' of their dead, wrapping them in blankets and pitching them off the roof. Allen and Barry worked feverishly to clean up the gore left behind, the blood slowly congealing on the floor, along with the bone and brain particles. Tara tried to keep Justin preoccupied while Emily, Natalie and Matthew attempted to calm the twins down. Eventually, Matthew was forced to give them a mild sedative. Once the sedative kicked in and the kids fell asleep, they moved them to the far side of cube land where beds had been set up as far away from the site of the carnage as possible.

"Are you sure we shouldn't just move them into the security office," Emily whispered, gesturing towards the kids.

"We could, but I think that's where the AA meeting is going on," Natalie replied.

"AA?"

"Assholes Anonymous. Sean and Aaron."

"In front of Tara?"

"Actually, I had Barry help her up onto the roof. I think we girls need to spend a little time to ourselves."

Emily looked perplexed, but Matthew's return kept her from asking any more questions.

"Look, why don't you two take a break. Justin and I will take care of the kids if they wake up, but I'm pretty sure with the dosage I gave them they'll sleep through till morning."

Justin, free from Tara now, had sat down beside the twins' sleeping area. The teen was wracked with guilt over what the kids had seen. He was sure everyone blamed him for not paying close enough attention to them when they'd slipped away from the roof. It was something that he wasn't going to let happen again, he owed it to his Mom to keep the kids safe.

"If you're sure..." Emily said hesitantly, reluctant to leave the kids alone.

"He's sure," Natalie told her pointedly, taking hold of the other woman's arm and directing her towards the exit. "Now, let's go bury the hatchet and get all our girly issues resolved."

"Uh, Emily, why don't you leave your pistol down here," Matthew suggested, a little leery at the thought of all the girls being together, and armed.

"Not a chance in hell," she told him. "Around here, the bad guys all seem to crawl out of the woodwork." She thought darkly of Sean, but allowed Natalie to drag her away and up onto the roof. There, Tara and Barry sat, an open bottle of wine sitting between them.

"Tara, you think the wine's a good idea? What with the pain pills and what happened the last time and all," Emily asked, slipping back into motherly mode. "Oh my god. I can't believe I just said that! I'm starting to sound like my Mother!"

"Well, at least you admitted it," Barry said cheerfully. "That's the first step."

Ignoring him, Emily continued. "So now that we're all up here, what exactly is the plan? Are we supposed to sit around listening to the dead moan while we talk about boys and do each others hair or what?"

"Please, as if there's a chance in hell that I'd let you touch my hair," Natalie smirked.

"Ladies please, let's not ruin a perfectly nice evening with all your fighting," Barry suggested.

"We're not fighting," snapped Emily.

"Look, the reason I brought you all up here is that I think there's something you all need to know about Sean," Natalie announced, catching everyone off guard by the seriousness of her tone and the subject matter it entailed.

"He's an unreasonablesonuvabitch? Sorry luv, we all know that one," Barry replied.

Plunging forward and ignoring the rest of them, Natalie continued with her story. "When we first escaped from the Fort, there were ten of us total. And that was before we picked up Allen hiding in the bus garage. Sean seems to have a tendency to 'sacrifice' the people he declares to be the weakest links when it serves his purpose."

"So his shooting Jonathan..." Tara prompted.

"Was just part of his normal MO."

"Who was it?" Emily asked, a chilling look entering her eyes.

"Who was who?"

"The people he left behind to die."

"There was an elderly woman named Beverly. She was the first to go. Her gout chose the wrong time to start acting up, so when those things started getting close to us, he rushed the rest of us ahead and she just couldn't keep up. I remember hearing her pleas for help. Sean shot her in the knee cap, I'll never forget the look of her face with those things swarmed."

"But you guys didn't do anything to stop him?" demanded Emily.

"Like what? We were running for our lives. I just barely caught it when he pulled his gun out and I figured he was going for the dead closest to her. It wasn't until I heard her scream that I turned and saw what he'd done. The next one he took out was Lynette. She was just your average stay at home mom sort like Vicki. I think she had some kids that went to the same school as Justin, but they didn't make it, not to the Fort anyway. She was really quiet, helped out with the kids and stuff but otherwise she didn't make waves."

"So what happened."

"After we'd lost Beverly, Sean insisted on our moving towards the highway, kept saying it was more open, didn't give the dead people anyplace to hide. And when we got there, there was wrecks and abandoned vehicles everywhere. But we kept walking, between the cars, hoping to God that those things were hell and gone from there."

"But they showed up," Tara said.

"Bingo. You could hear them snarling one second, and then they just appeared out of no place."

"Jesus," Barry murmured. "What'd you do?"

"There was some kind of SUV sitting there abandoned. Sean yelled at us to get in, he'd jumped in the driver's side, got it started and we'd all managed to pile in put Lynette. She'd just started to climb in side, and those things were almost to our bumper and he just floored it. She tried to hang on, but lost it when he plowed his way off the road and into the median to get away. If he'd have waited for just two more seconds, she would have made it and we still could have gotten away."

"Okay, so that's two down," Emily said a little coldly, what happened next.

Natalie pulled out another smoke and lit it before continuing with her story. "We lost Marcus at the bus garage. He was a young guy, a grad student, and the one who came up with the idea of heading to the bus garage. We were running on fumes in the SUV, so it was either go on foot again or find another sort of transportation. We just plowed through the fence and headed towards the nearest building and found Allen. The noise we'd made crashing through the fence is what drew the dead there I think, and of course, nobody thought to lock the doors once we made it inside the garage. And we wasted so much time trying to fuel up one of the buses and find food and water to take with us. Marcus was on his way back to the bus with some bottled water when they nabbed him."

"Okay, this one I'm having a hard time seeing as his fault," Barry said, and Emily silently agreed, waiting to see how the other woman would explain this one.

"He didn't lock the door now did he?" she snapped, taking a long hit off her smoke.

"Well, no, but apparently neither did anyone else," reasoned Emily. "Now, I agree that the first one was definitely murder. The second one sounds suspicious, but in all fairness it could have been an accident. The third one, that just sounds like extremely bad timing on that Marcus guy's part. And by the way, that's not a cigarette you're smoking right now either, is it?"

"No. Not that it's any of your business."

"You mean it's pot?" giggled Tara.

"Yea, so?"

"In the immortal words of Chris Tucker honey, 'puff puff give.' Don't be selfish now," Barry said with a grin, reaching out his hand. Natalie narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him, but decided to relinquish the joint.

An hour and severalfat oneslater, they were still trying to continue the conversation, it just wasn't going very smoothly.

"I'm telling you, the fucker killed them all!" Natalie was back to insisting.

"Bullshit. He may be Super Jackass Man, but I have to agree with Em, two of those don't sound like anything more than accidents," Barry said, munching on a small bag of chips.

"Can we be done talking about Sean please? I'm**so **sick of talking aboutMister Creepy and personally I think Matthew's tight little butt is a much better topic," Tara interjected. "Barry, pass the chips."

"Get your own frickin' chips, these are mine."

"Matthew is too old for you Tara, why don't you take Justin for a test drive and stick with something your own age."

"Can we get back to the topic of the fucking sociopath murderer please?"

"I can't go get my own chips! Hello! Injured here. And what the hell do you mean that Matthew is too old for me?" Tara demanded, whirling towards Emily. "You're just jealous 'cause you picked crazy soldier man to screw and he's getting more and more like his supposedly phony online profile every day."

"Tara, I swear to God if I wasn't so stoned right now I'd bitch slap you off this roof. And for the record, Aaron may be the crazy soldier guy, but at least I have a sex life. And believe me, crazy or not he was totally worth it. And he's not even close to being that phony profile. I don't see him stuffing any dead things and there is an unusual abundance of them laying around you know."

"Jesus, would you people listen to yourselves," Natalie said in disgust. "How about we start thinking about the group as a whole instead of who's eating what and who's screwing who!"

"Huh. You know, for some reason I just can't get that Tom Petty song out of my mind," Barry said, completely off topic.

"Tom Petty? Wasn't he like a race car driver or somethin?" Tara asked.

"No, Tom Petty is a musician, Richard Petty is the race car driver you idiot. What, have you been living under a rock or something?" Natalie scoffed.

"Hardly."

"What song?" Emily prodded, grateful for the distraction. Had she really just bragged about having a sex life? With Aaron? Geezus she needed to lay off the pot, she thought, taking another toke anyway.

"You know, that one that goes something something, let's roll another joint, something something, you don't know how it feels to be me. At least, I think that's how it goes," Barry replied. He was shaking an upside down bag of chips, trying to dislodge any remaining crumbs. Damn he was hungry.

"I guess none of you are going to take what I've said seriously, at least, not serious enough to continue discussing it like rationale people. No, instead just go ahead and talk about old rockers and your fucking sex lives," Natalie said in disgust.

"We've been discussing something?" Emily asked sarcastically. "And here I thought all this time it was you telling us your version of events and then getting belligerent when we question any of it."

"Just forget it. When Sean decides it's time to sacrifice you we'll see who's laughing then."

"Okay, to be fair, you're the one who brought weed to this little party and then expected us to be able to talk rationally. Big mistake. That being said, what makes you so certain that Sean is going to 'sacrifice' one of us? We're all trapped here now, what would the point be?" Emily asked.

"Do you really think he has any intention of staying here?

"Where we gonna go? How we gonna get there? Face it Natalie, we're trapped here."

"Hardly. But I'm not wasting any more time with the likes of you. I've warned you, if you don't want to listen, it's your funeral." She climbed to her feet and disappeared, back into the building.

"If that was her idea of how to win friends and influence people she definitely didn't read the same book that I did," Barry yawned.

But Natalie actually smiled quite proudly to herself as she fairly skipped down the steps. He'd be happy with what she'd done tonight. Lost in these thoughts, she wasn't prepared for the hand that suddenly clamped around her mouth and pulled her into the shadows of the steps.

"Did you do what I asked?" a masculine voice whispered.

"Of course."

"And they believed everything you told them?" the voice asked again, a muscular forearm coming up to wrap tightly against her throat.

"Everything. There's no way they trust either of them."

"You're sure?" he pressed, squeezing his arm tighter,coming dangerously close to crushing her throat. It only eased up when she let out a small, barely audible whimper of terror.

"Yes! I swear. They think the two of them are satan's little minions themselves. I did everything you asked."

"Excellent." The arm around her throat suddenly dropped, and she found herself whirled around, a pair of hard lips crushing down on her own. "Excellent."


	14. Tokin' the Night Away

On the rooftop, still smokin.' 

"It was really nice of Nat to leave her stash up here with us," sighed Barry, stretching lazily where he lay, sprawled out on the roof, looking up at the stars. Beside him, Tara grinned in agreement.

"It's totally fuckin' awesome, that's what it is. Can you believe I've never smoked one of these things until tonight?" the teen giggled. "I mean, I've smoked cigarettes and one of my best friends totally swears that she slipped me some E one night at a rave, but I mean, I don't remember any of it, so I **swear** she's like totally yankin' my chain. 'Cause like.."

"You know what's been really bugging me?" Emily suddenly asked, cutting Tara off in mid-story.

"The fact that we seem to be dangerously low on munchies?" Barry responded, rifling through a pile of empty packages, looking for any crumb he might find.

"No. That's a good one, and by no means not important, but no. What the fuck happened to number eight?"

"Number eight what?" Tara and Barry said, not really in unison, but close enough to bring on another uncontrollable fit of giggles and laughter from the pair. Ignoring their behavior, Emily continued with her rant.

"I swear there was eight people on top of that bus roof this morning." She was thinking hard, trying to picture the morning's events in her mind again. "But...I'm...there hasn't been enough people," she started counting on her fingers. "Seven...I've only seen seven of them. You guys know what I mean?"

"Truthfully Em, I can't remember shit right now, not as far back as this morning," Barry said, suddenly sounding serious. "It's like I'm just stuck on the sight of Thomas laying there with that fucking little hole in the back of his head, and his face just blown away and splattered all of the goddamn floor."

"Both of you are so dumb," Tara laughed. "I can't believe you don't remember Richard."

"Richard?" Emily asked, trying to remember a face to go with the name.

"Yea. Kinda old, well, like, Thomas kind of old anyway. Short, sorta grayish, maybe brownish hair, brown eyes. Totally forgettable type," described the teen.

"Sounds like half the men who ever tried to hit on me at the clubs," Barry sighed.

"Why can't I remember this guy? I was right there when they got off the bus," Emily complained. "Hell, I was ready to shoot them if they made the wrong move."

"What part of 'totally forgettable' eludes you?" Tara asked, just before taking another long toke.

"Ha ha, aren't we suddenly witty this evening," Emily bit back.

"Ease up Em, she's just trying to make a little joke. Cut her some slack, you're stoned."

"I'm stoned? What the fuck about her Barry? Or you for that matter, if you're gonna start pointing fingers. What the fuck? It was a fucking rhetorical question, I don't need your bullshit, smart ass answers."

Barry was silent, thinking, 'note to self, pot and Emily, not a good combination.' Then Tara had to open her mouth and be sarcastic again.

"Riiiight. Because you never give us smart ass replies. You're just 'little miss know-it-all has to be right all the time' aren't you?"

"Look, arguing about it and getting all bitchy isn't gonna make things any better, so why don't you two just shake hands or bury the hatchet or whatever shit like that works, and agree to disagree about things,like the factthat you're both a couple of sarcastic, little miss know-it-alls, and let's move on shall we?" Barry suggested. While the two women momentarily focused their own little looks of death at him, he swallowed hard, thinking, 'new note to self, scratch that last thought, pot and Emily mixed with pot and Tara, very bad idea.' Whatever gave him the idea that he could be some kind of negotiator between these two, he thought.

"Okay, I'll do it," Tara pronounced proudly, just before ruining the affect by adding, "Just as soon as she admits that she started it all and that she's the bitch."

Emily grinned and it was a downright scary sight. "Sure, I started it all. And I am a bitch, a total bitch, really I am. I mean, it takes such a total monster to ask a reasonable question and expect a reasonable response. And being such a horrible bitchy monster, let me just say that since I must have started this whole little fiasco, then dislocated shoulder or not, I don't got any problem with finishing it."

"Wait a second, I'm the one with the dislocated shoulder, not you!"

"Brilliant observation Tara, really, highly astute of you. I'm saying the fact that you've got a gimp shoulder won't stop me from finishing things. My way. Oh, by the way, is anyone else here packin'?" she asked, patting the pistol laying on the roof beside her. "Cause, say hullo to my leetle friend!"

"Truce ladies! Time-out, or whatever. You're frickin' killing my buzz here," Barry protested, nervous that they really were going to start tearing into each other unless he put a stop to it. He made a new mental note, 'don't ever really piss these women off.' Especially Emily,while Tara definitely could hold her own in the brains department, Emily had a temper that was a hotter red than her hair color, if she ever let her real hair color show. Together though, they were a formidable pair, there was just no way he'd be able to handle it if he was dealing with both their combined wrath, it'd be easier talking to the cannibal critters down on the street.

"Oh fine, Barry, make this all about you," Tara complained.

"Really!" Emily agreed bitterly.

"Good," Barry replied hesitantly. Were they going to start ganging up on him now? Or was this damn weed they were smoking laced with estrogen to make the women crazy? He was seriously starting to wonder. He hoped to God they weren't seriously pissed off at him. Damn, this was some pretty good shit if it was making him this paranoid.

"So what's the scoop on this Dick guy?" Emily asked, changing the subject so swiftly Barry thought he'd collapse in relief. If he hadn't already been laying down of course.

"Dick? Oh, you mean Richard. Not much to say, really," Tara responded.

"There's got to be something."

"Not really. He hasn't said much, at least to me. I think I remember that he said something about being the last one off the bus or something, but that's about it. When you guys were all busy with Vicki and the kids and all that shooting and stuff, I don't know, he just kept to himself really. At least, he did when he wasn't talking to Natalie. I don't remember if he said anything to Allen."

"Where was he when I came back from sitting with Vicki?"

"I don't know. You guys were all out of the of the security office, getting Vicki moved," she closed her eyes as she spoke, struggling to remember. "The roof! You and Thomas were waiting things out with Vicki, Barry and Justin took the kids up to the roof to run around 'cause they was driving me nuts, and then... I remember he said something to Natalie, and I don't think she liked it much. And then he said, just remember to stick to what you've been told and that he'd be on the roof."

"Why?"

"Why what?

"You said you didn't think she liked what he said much, why?"

"She just didn't look very happy. Not for someone who'd just been rescued anyway."

Emily rolled her eyes, it wasn't the information she'd been hoping for. "Go on."

"That's it really. He whispered something to Natalie, just looked at Allen, and left."

"So, all this time he was spending with Natalie, what were they saying?" Barry asked out of curiosity.

"I couldn't really tell, they was kind of whispering and stuff, so I don't think I could have made it out even if I'd tried. He was probably trying to get in her pants or something."

"Or else she was negotiating her price," Barry said.

"Did they act like they knew each other really well? Like maybe father, daughter kind of thing?" Emily asked ignoring her friend's snide comment, and for his part, Barry could almost hear the gears spinning in her head as she digested this new information.

"What's going on in that mind of yours, Em?" he asked.

"Nothing, just trying to get a grasp on our new roommate situation."

"Why, you hopin' he is her Dad so you can have another guy sniffin' after you?" Tara quipped.

"NO. There's just something about this that just doesn't feel right," Emily told her.

"Maybe all the pot has made you just a little bit too paranoid," the teen said in reply.

"Wow. Thanks for that vote of confidence. Maybe all your bruises make you too much of a burden and we should just toss your ass over the side."

"Remember we're all friends here ladies. Let's keep it peaceful," Barry instructed.

"Bite me," Emily declared, climbing to her feet. She paced a short distance away from the others, trying to figure out this new puzzle the Natalie/ Richard dynamic was creating in her mind. When she returned to the others she had one more question to ask. "Okay, Tara, I need you to think long and hard about this. Do you know what Richard meant when he told Natalie to 'stick with what she'd been told'?"

Tara was quiet for a long minute. "I think so," she said at last.

Down in the main office area, Justin still sat watching the twins, desperately trying to fight off the feeling of exhaustion that was slowly catching up to him after the long day's events. Deep down he couldn't shake the terrifying feeling of what had almost happened to the kids the last time he'd let them out of his sight. It wasn't going to happen again he vowed silently to himself, he wasn't going to let his Mom down. Besides, thinking about that gave him something to think about besides what had happened to his Mom. They hadn't let him see the body, but they hadn't been able to keep him out of the bloody aftermath, it was an image that was going to stick with him for a long time to come. Nearby, Allen was fast asleep and snoring loudly. On the far side of the room, Matthew had joined Aaron and Sean in their discussion of what their next step should be. Natalie and Richard were still missing in action.

"But if we try taking that bus, where exactly do you have in mind to go? Besides, that driver said the bus was low on gas," Matthew argued.

"We don't know what 'low on gas' really means," countered Aaron.

"Hell, I was on that bus and I couldn't tell you one way or another what it means. Allen and Richard pretty much handled everything with the bus, the rest of us couldn't get anywhere close to the driver's seat," Sean announced.

"It's worth a shot Mattie. If we can at least make it out of the city I think we'll be able to refuel in one of those small, off the beaten track, backwater towns. There'd be a pretty good chance that there wouldn't be too many of those things hanging around a small town. We should be able to hold them off long enough to refuel and re-supply," Aaron insisted. He was normally a man of action, and all of this sitting around waiting was more than he could handle. It was too close to just flat out giving up for him to stomach. When Sean had suggested the idea of escaping from the building on board the bus to him earlier that day, he'd leaped at the thought. The first obstacle to overcome would be convincing the rest of the group that the plan had merit.

"It just seems like such a pointless, risky endeavor," the medic replied. "Right now we've got a secure building, food and supplies. I don't see any reason to leave this all behind. Especially not for some far-fetched plan we don't even know will work."

"Well I for one refuse to just roll over and give up. It's like we're laying down and waiting to die. We're not even trying to fight back," Aaron bit out angrily.

"Nobody's given up! We're still alive aren't we? That alone is a victory," insisted Matthew.

"Look, gentlemen. There's really no point in arguing about this until we get all the facts together and actual have a definitive plan for what we're going to do. And I'm sure that you'll want the group to vote on a decision too," Sean said diplomatically to Matthew.

"Talk of a vote is just too premature. Think about it, you're talking about a plan that involves dragging two kids and a teenage girl who can barely walk out into the middle of the fucking killing fields," the medic protested.

"We'll be able to work around that when the time comes. But do us a favor, don't hide behind a couple of kids if you're scared. Those two have been through more than you can ever imagine, and you know what? They're gonna be fine. Kids are resilient that way."

"You're insane," Matthew said to Sean after his little speech.

"Maybe so, but there's a very fine line between insanity and genius now isn't there. So, if you're through arguing, I suggest we wake the fat man over there and find out just what exactly the situation is with the bus,"Sean replied.

Down another flight of stairs, in the sporting good section of the department store, two figures lay entwined amid a hastily put together bed of sleeping bags.

"I still don't get why you wanted me to say those things to those morons up on the roof," Natalie purred, combing her fingers through the thick, graying hair on the chest that rested beneath her cheek. She raised her head to look him in the eyes as he answered.

"Simple, if you did your job right, it's all about control." He grabbed a fistful of her hair, wrapping it around his hand and twisting it tight until she whimpered. "Now tell me again, are you absolutely sure they believed you?"

"Yes!" She cried out.

"And did you tell them exactly what I told you to say?"

"Yes," she whimpered, silently adding, 'more or less.'

A/N: Now, a lot of you are going to say to yourselves, "That's bullshit! She can't just add in characters like that." Before the outrage begins, I did say when the bus people arrived, there were 8 of them total, and if you count, in the last few chapters I've only included seven of them. That being said, feel free to complain to management.

D.S.


	15. The Night Before and the Morning After

Barry let out a groan, slowly flickering his eyes open as the sun began to rise in the early morning sky. Struggling to sit up, he groaned again, sleeping on the roof was probably one of the dumber things he'd done in his life recently. "I'm way too fuckin' old for this shit," he grumbled, turning towards where the girls had sprawled beside him the night before. Startled, he realized he was all alone on the rooftop. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but he couldn't remember when they'd left. Scrambling to his feet he hurried towards the stairs into the building to find them.

In the security office, Tara was actually relaxing comfortably on the sofa she'd claimed as her bed. Emily had helped her limp her way back to the office just before dawn. Emily herself was kicked back in Thomas' chair, her feet kicked up on the desk, eyes closed, but not asleep. It was nice and peaceful, right up until Natalie and Richard appeared, with Barry hot on their heels.

"Jesus Tara, why the hell didn't you guys wake me up when you came down here," Barry demanded. "I could have carried you down here ya know."

"We did try to wake you up," Tara told him. "Several times. You just kept rolling over and snoring, so we figured we should just let you sleep.

"Still..." Barry drawled out, trying to save a little face with his friends.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty's awake," Emily said, opening her eyes as if she'd been sleeping as well. She glanced around the room, taking in her first sight of Richard, before focusing once more on the two people now seated on the couch. Despite the quick glance at the others, she still couldn't help but notice the vicious bruise forming on Natalie's neck, or the fact that Richard appeared to be some kind of tall, hulking behemoth of a man looming beside her. He could have been any age between 40 and 60, the strange contrast of his burly, muscular build, and the graying hair that accompanied the craggy features of his face making it difficult to guess.

"You should have tried harder to wake me up Ems," her friend chastised.

"Hey, we made it down here just fine," she told him dismissively. "Besides, I don't think a freight train could have woke you up." Slowly she rose to her feet, stretching. "I don't suppose you saw Aaron roaming around on your way down? I **really** need to talk to him."

"More likely she needs a piece of ass," Tara muttered, just loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. Subtlety wasn't exactly her strong suit that morning.

"I heard that drama queen, and that's not why I'mlooking for him."

"Yea, right."

"Barry, have you seen him or not?" Emily asked, anger tingeing her voice.

"No, I didn't see anyone this morning."

"Fine, I'll just find him myself," she said, nearly stomping as she exited the room.

"Shit. I better go see if I can help her," Barry said. "Guess the truce must be over now that we're in the harsh light of day. Realityreally does bite sometimes." He left the room without waiting for the teen to respond.

"Ohmygod! She is such a bitch! I don't see how Barry has put up with her all these years," Tara exclaimed as soon as he left the room.

"Yea, I've noticed that myself," commented Natalie, moving forward, encouraged by the not so subtle pressure of Richard's hand pressing against her lower back. She took Barry's recently vacated seat on the sofa's arm.

"Why don't I leave you two ladies alone, sounds like you've got some girl talk to take care of. I'm sure you don't want an old man like me hanging around and listening." As he spoke, he flashed Natalie an intent look that spoke volumes. Inwardly, Natalie shuddered, knowing there'd be some serious consequences if she didn't do exactly as he wanted. She sat watching his back as he departed through the door.

"So what happened last night after I left? Obviously nothing good if she's still being such a bitch this morning," commented Natalie.

"For the most part I tried to reason with her that **maybe** we should at least consider what you said last night about what that Sean guy did before you got here. I mean, as far as I can tell the guy's a total **ass.** But she wouldn't listen to me, of course. I don't think she liked it when I threw Aaron into the mix. God forbid if anyone criticizes her boy toy."

"So she's pretty tight with that Aaron guy?"

"Please! They think they've got us all fooled, but, I mean, come on. What else are two people like that doing when they sneak away by themselves for **hours** at a time. They sure as shit aren't doing bible study."

"So you all think that they're..."

"Totally bumpin' uglies. I think they've been gettin' it on ever since him and Matthew showed up. And she's so fuckin' greedy. Oh my god. She knows I'm like totally into Matthew, and she prances around with **both** of them, just to piss me off. I mean, it's like she thinks that just because she's got big tits she has first dibs on all the available men around here."

"Is that right?" Natalie asked, intrigued. This fishing for information was starting to geta little more interesting.

"Hell yes! Like I said, she knows I want Matthew, but she goes into, like, full on turbo slut mode whenever he's around. It's so not fair."

"So you two really hate each other then," commented Natalie. She was trying to commit everything the girl told her to memory, not really sure that it would help out Richard any, but terrified of what he'd do if she didn't report everything to him.

Meanwhile, Emily managed to locate Aaron in the dating service office.

"Aaron! There you are," she called out, rushing over to the bank of windows where he stood, looking out over the ruins of the city.

"Shhhh..." he whispered, pressing a finger to his lips and gesturing with his free hand to where Justin lay sleeping. He'd finally succumbed to exhaustion and was sound asleep next to the beds the twins had occupied the night before. "Matthew and Allen took the twins downstairs to the department store to keep them busy," he explained before she could even ask where the kids were.

"Poor kid," she said, looking at the sleeping teen. Focusing on Aaron once more, she asked, "Isn't there someplace we can talk alone for a few minutes? I really need to tell you about something."

Aaron nodded, taking her hand and walking towards the back hallway where the executive offices lay. "Actually, I've got some things to tell you too," he said quietly. As he spoke, he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. It was Barry, followed by Richard entering cube-land. As soon as he caught sight of the two men, especially the big, gray-haired man, he roughly yanked Emily to him, whispering, "Play along, act like you're fighting me." His lips roughly met hers, taking her by surprise.

As soon as he raised his head she tried to slap him. "You sonuvabitch! What the hell do you think you're doing?" She struggled to break out of his grasp, but he still dragged her out of sight down the back hallway. The sound of a door slamming shut echoed into cube-land a few moments later.

"Looks like there's trouble in paradise," commented Richard. Barry whirled towards the sound of his voice, not having realized he'd been followed.

"They'll...be okay...I'm sure," he replied slowly, not really sure what he'd just witnessed. "I mean, Emily has always been a sucker for good old-fashioned make-up sex."

"Really?" Richard asked with a smile. "I could have sworn she didn't look interested in anything to do with that man.

"That's how their whole relationship has been. You don't think he'll hurt her do you," Barry said. "Maybe we should go check on them."

"No. It'll probably be better to let them work it out alone. The Sergeant doesn't seem like the kind of man to rough up a woman," the older man said. "And you said it yourself, it's probably just a kinky little game for them."

"I'm not so.."

"Trust me, I've had lots of experience in that area."

"But..."

"Look, why don't you tell me more about your friend. When we're done talking, if you're still worried about her, I'll help you get her away from the soldier." Richard casually lead Barry towards a couple of chairs in a vacant cubicle, sitting him down for a nice, 'man to man' talk.

Inside the back office, Emily was startled to see Sean seated at the desk, typing away at the computer. Turning to look at Aaron she said, "Looks like you've got a lot of explaining to do. Care to fill me in?"

_The night before:_

"_Allen! Wake up!" demanded Sean, his booted foot nudging the driver in his ample backside._

"_Mmmmm...Just a few more minutes honey, I promise, I won't be late for work this time," the man grumbled in his sleep. _

"_Allen!" Sean called out sharply, applying the toe of his boot with a little more force._

"_Wha!" the driver exclaimed, sitting up quickly and looking at the three men that stood looming over him. The sight caught him off guard, considering he'd been dreaming of waking up and seeing his wife standing there. "What...What's going on?" he asked. Even to his own earshis voicesounded like a frog had taken up residence in his throat, the expressions on the other mens' faces making him nervous. _

"_We've got some questions for you and we want answers. Now," Aaron told him curtly and without preamble._

"_Whatever...Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you," Allen said carefully._

"_The bus. What exactly did you mean when you said it was 'low' on fuel?" Aaron demanded._

_The chubby bus driver sighed. "Nothing," he whispered._

"_Nothing? What do you mean by that?" Sean pressed._

"_The tank was about half full yet when we stopped here," the driver stammered out._

"_Then why lie to us? Why not just tell us the truth from the start?" Matthew asked._

"_Because that's what I was told to do. He said...he said he'd give me a hundred thousand dollars if I told you all that, plus another hundred to keep my mouth shut."_

"_Who told you?" Sean asked, already knowing the answer, but wanting to hear the man say it anyway._

"_Ri..Richard."_

"_If he offered you all that money, why are you telling us?" Matthew asked skeptically. "And why should we believe you?"_

"_I just woke up to three men standing over me, two of them with guns demanding I give them answers._ _Why would I lie?" the driver asked, putting on a brave face, hoping they weren't just going to shoot him. "Besides. Look outside. What good is a bunch of money going to do me now? Is it going to bring my wife back? The world is dead, and its just a matter of time before we are too." He looked down sadly, tears forming in his eyes. _

"Wait, why would Richard be bribing him to lie to us?" demanded Emily as soon as Aaron finished telling her about the previous night'sevents. "Where's the logic?"

"I don't know. That's all we could get out ofhim last night," Sean replied. "Even after your boyfriend King Kong here tried to strong arm him into more. There just wasn't anything else to learn."

"Maybe not from him, but he's not the only one on Richard's payroll. Natilie's working for him too. But I don't think it's money he's holding over her head," Emily said.

"What makes you say that?" Aaron asked.

"She was a very busy girl last night, arranging for a little gathering up on the roof for herself, me, Tara and Barry. Complete with all the weed we could smoke. Basically, she got us up there to tell us some bizarre story about Sean knee-capping some old woman to save his own ass."

"I did what!" demanded Sean.

"Knee-capped an old woman and left her for the dead to save your own skin. Oh, and then there was something about stealing an SUV and ditching some other woman to help you get away. You know, give the monsters something to nibble on while you drove off into the sunset. I'm still not quite clear how the guy who went off in search of bottled water was your fault, but she was blaming that on you too. And of course since the two of you obviously know each other, you're both the masterminds behind some kind of evil fanatical plot," Emily explained.

"Interesting. I don't suppose she said anything about the fact that Beverly had already been bit when I shot her?" Sean asked. "And I actually shot her in the head, not the leg. She was begging for help, and a quick death with no chance of coming back like one of those things was the only thing I could offer her at the time."

Emily nodded, absorbing the information. "What about her other accusations?"

"The second lady's name was Lynette. She was the last one trying to squeeze inside the Ford Explorer we'd found out on the interstate, insisted that the kids and the rest of them pile in first. She'd just started to climb inside when one of those monsters came out of nowhere and bit her in the arm. I saw the blood spurt, heard her scream and just floored it. She could have climbed the rest of the way inside, but instead she jumped out. The last thing I saw in the rear view mirror was about twenty of those things swarming all over her, tearing her to pieces."

"She jumped out? She wasn't thrown out of the vehicle when you took off?"

"Tell me something Emily, what would you have done in her position? Imagine you've been bit, you know it's only a matter of time before you're dead and putting everyone with you at risk. What would you do?" Sean asked.

"Probably put a gun in my mouth," Emily said carefully.

"And if you didn't have a gun?"

"I don't know. I don't think I could just give up and let them take me apart like that," she said softly.

"You won't have to. It'll be over my dead body that those things get close enough to you to harm you," Aaron said fiercely. "And if it comes down to that, than my sacrifice would buy you time to get away." Emily stared at him in shock.

Clearing his throat to get their attention, Sean tried to bring their discussion back on track. "What else didNatilie say?"

"Not much. She got pretty pissed off at us when we didn't immediately start cursing you and planning on burning your likeness in effigy after she told us her story. God forbid we question her so-called 'facts' before forming an opinion."

"Did she say anything about Richard."

"No. Hell, it wasn't until after she'd left that the subject of him even came up. I don't remember seeing him at all yesterday. This morning, in the security office, I swear, that's the first time I remember seeing him. Ever."

"So what made you decide Natalie and Richard are working together?" Sean pressed further.

"Something Tara had said about what was going on in the security office while the rest of us were dealing with the Vicki situation...it just got me thinking about the possibility. Then this morning, they both showed up in the security office together, and when I saw her...I just knew that she's pretty much at his mercy."

"What makes you say that?"

She explained about the bruises on the other woman's neck, the way she seemed to look to him before she spoke. To Emily's way of thinking it all spoke of one thing, he was using the other woman, and using violence to exert his control.

"What else happened last night?" Aaron asked, curious.

"Well, after Barry fell asleep..."

"_So why are you letting Natalie get to you so much?" demanded Tara. "Are you that afraid it might be true?"_

"_That what's true?"_

"_That your boyfriend and his little crony are a couple of murderous sons of bitches who would sell their own mothers to survive."_

"_Go to hell Tara, you know Aaron better than that."_

"_Not as well as you, apparently."_

"_Why are we always fighting?" Emily asked suddenly, catching Tara off guard._

"_What do you mean."_

"_If I say the sky is blue, you say it's green. Whatever I say, you immediately contradict, why?"_

"_I guess I never realized that was happening. I just assumed you were being a bitch on purpose."_

"_You're not still holding the whole Aaron and Matthew thing against me are you?"_

"_Maybe," Tara admitted gruffly. "But you're still acting like I'm dumb just because I'm a teenager, admit it."_

"_Okay, maybe just a little guilty of thinking that in the past, but now I admit it, you're definitely not stupid. So, that being said, I want you to be honest, do you really believe a word of what Natalie was spouting off tonight?"_

"_Some of it may be possible, but I don't really see how Aaron could have been involved ahead of time."_

"_Exactly. He couldn't have faked the kind of surprise I saw on his face the first time he recognized Sean. So I'll tell you what, how would you like to do a little bit of undercover spy kind of stuff?"_

"_What do you have in mind?"_

"_Barry wants us to have a little truce, I say we go with it..."_

"_How's that supposed to be undercover spy stuff?"_

"_We'll go with it behind closed doors...but in front of the rest of the group..."_

"_We'll be just as bitchy as ever!" Tara exclaimed, catching on to the idea quickly._

"_Told ya' I knew you were smart. We'll let everyone assume we hate each other, so you'll get a chance to get close to Natalie. I'd be willing to bet she'll jump at the chance to make friends with you, spread whatever wild tales she can. She might even think you'll be able to influence Barry and some of the others to her way of thinking."_

"_It sounds just crazy enough to possibly work," the teen grinned. "But there's just one other thing that makes it worthwhile."_

"_What's that?"_

"_The fact that I still get to be an absolute bitch to you and you'll just have deal with it!"_

"_I could say the same thing to you." The two women shared a smile, and the tentative bonds of friendship were forged._

"So do you think it was wise to throw her to the wolves like that?" Sean asked after listening to her story.

"It's not exactly throwing her to the wolves," defended Emily. "And how else are we going to find out what those two have in mind for the rest of us?"

"How else indeed," Sean said quietly.


	16. The Infamous Mr K

The ringing of a cell phone pierced the relative silence of the rooftop, where a solitary figure stood, waiting.

"Richard."

"Richard! I hope this goddamn delay of yours has been a worthwhile waste of my time," a disembodied voicespoke harshlyinto his ear.

"I think you'll be very happy with the merchandise I'll be bringing back, Mr. K."

"Okay, I'll bite. What kind of merchandise?"

"For starters, there's a department store here that we should be able to load up on all kinds of supplies, a restaurant too, so there could be food. I wouldn't guarantee that anything's gonna be too fresh though," Richard tried to joke.

"You've got about 30 seconds to thrill me with something better than department stores and restaurants before I tell you not to bother coming back in," his boss' humorless voice replied.

"How about a little teen dream that should net us a fortune once we get her back to the city and working the streets."

"You have my attention. Now what else do you have to thrill me with?"

"How about more moneymakers? There's another one here that's a spirited little hellcat, we should be able to put her to work in the back rooms, maybe even get her up on stage dancing. She'd probably be too much of a risk working the streets with the other two, I wouldn't put it past her to try running on us if we did, but she still oughta bring in some good cash. Maybe even more than the others, over time anyway."

"You're sure you can handle this one?"

"Absolutely. The teen queen's a little busted up right now, nothing major, but enough to make her pretty docile..."

"Busted up is no good to me. How long am I gonna have to wait around babying her before she'll actually be bring me a profit? But that's not the one I'm concerned about. If the other one's as wild as you say she is, she could be more trouble than whatever her money making potential is worth."

"I've broken in wilder fillies than this before," Richard drawled, for the first time revealing the faintest hint of a Texas accent into his otherwise carefully articulated speech. "Besides, it's not like I'm flying completely alone here, I've got that girl I picked up from the Fort, and then that bus driver will do whatever I tell him to do. At least as long as he thinks he's getting paid for it."

"And the others?"

"What 'others'? Richard hedged.

"I really hope that by now you realize you can't play me for some sort of fool Richard."

"No, sir, Mr. K, sir."

"Because even with your talents for survival, and, uh, shall we say your skills of procurement, you're not entirely irreplaceable to me."

"Of course not Mr. K, I'd never even suggest..."

"So quit your feeble attempts at kissing my ass and answer my damn question."

"There's a couple of kids here, probably not even pre-teens yet."

"Kids aren't entirely without their uses, and I understand they're easier to train when you start them young, kind of like dogs."

If Richard was even remotely shocked at the sentiment, it didn't show. "They've also got a big brother or something..."

"Good, we should be able to make use of him right now, get him out there on the front line patrols along the throat," Mr. K reasoned, not even letting Richard finish.

"There's also a couple other guys here, I think one of them is some kind of medic."

"We can make use of that, cities always need medical providers.However, you're stalling, and I sense a 'but' coming."

"Nothing that can't be taken care of Mr. K."

"You're bullshitting me again Richard. I want the facts."

"The last two are a couple of soldiers."

"Good, nothing like having them already trained to kill when they join our ranks. You should have told me about them sooner, they're much more important than some lousy kids and doctors."

"I'm not so sure they're going to willingly join up, Mr. K. There's also a good possibility that they'll try to interfere with our plans for the girls. I get the impression that they're going to be territorial in that respect."

"Well these are your problems Richard, not mine. You have two days, if you're not at the docks to meet the boat by 4pm the day after tomorrow, you'll have to find your own safe haven."

Just like that, the line went dead. Richard stared out across the skyline, trying to come up with a solution to his problems. He hadn't lied to Mr. Kaufman, Natalie was already his to command, and the bus driver had already proven he was easily bought, something that he'dbe able to work to his advantage. The little teen was going to be easy to handle too, at least until her shoulder and ankle healed, he could even rely on Natalie to deal with her if he had too.

The hellcat and the soldiers, those were his real problems. And they all seemed to be closely tied to each other. He'd have to use Natalie to separate them as much as possible.

"Richard?" Natalie's voice called from behind him, breaking into his thoughts.

"What did you learn from the girl?"

"The two girls, they hate each other. Tara's jealous of that other one, seems to think she's hogging all the male attention around here."

"And just how am I supposed to use some worthless information like that? Hmm?"

"I...I was getting to that," she replied, startled. "Tara says that the other girl goes nowhere alone, she's either got her gay friend, or one of those guys with her."

"Then it looks like it's going to be your job to get her away from the others now won't it?"

"My job?"

"We leave in two days, your job is to get the bitch away from those soldiers. I'll deal with the teenager."

"Where are we going? You keep saying that we're going someplace, but...you never tell me where."

"We're going someplace that's safe from those things, that's all you need to know."

"But..." she choked out, cowering when he raised his fist as if to strike her. He'd already proven how many places he could hit her without leaving any visible bruises.

"Do you need another lesson? Is that it?" he gave her a terrifying smile.

"No...please...I won't ask again. I swear I won't," she cried, cringing away. "I'll do whatever you ask, please, just don't hurt me."

"Whether or not you get hurt is entirely up to you my little pet. Now I want you to tell me everything that the girl told you, without any lies, and don't leave anything out, or else you'll force me to punish you again."

Down in the security office, Emily was interrogating Tara, only in a much more snide, yet friendly, manner.

"Okay kiddo, I want the 411, what'd you learn?" demanded Emily. Once she'd been filled in on what the bus driver knew, she'd waited in the shadows outside the security office until she saw Natalie leave. It'd been a long wait, but then Aaron had joined her and she'd almost missed the other woman's exit in the process. But as soon as the other woman left, Emily went on her fishing for information quest.

"She kept asking me questions, about you and me mostly. She really seemed to like the idea that we don't get along."

"Was she trying to get you to pick sides?"

"Not in so many words, but I definitely got the impression she wanted to make friends with me. I think she also was fishing for information on who's screwin' around with who," the teen answered and then laughed over the way Emily's eyes seemed to bulge from her head.

"Why in the fuck would she care about something like that?"

"Maybe she wants a piece of your action."

"Or to laugh at your non-action!"

"Hey! I thought we was on the same side here," complained the teen.

"Sorry. Just trying to stay in practice for when we have an audience."

"Yea, right."

"Seriously, what the fuck does my sex life have to do with anything?"

"Okay, Emily, focus here. For starters, no one gives a good goddamn about your sex life, so just get over it. The whole point I was making there, she's trying to find out who spends their time with who. I just threw in the rest of it for a few laughs."

"And you're bitching at me about getting along?"

"Oops. Like you said, practice."

"All right, I guess on some level I deserved that."

"Damn right you did."

"Okay, okay. Truce," Emily said defensively. Her mind was whirling, trying to connect the information she'd gotten from Sean and Aaron with Tara's suspicions. There was pattern there somewhere. "Let's piece this thing together from the start. The guys say that the bus driver was paid to drive them from the bus garage to the docks off of Butler street."

"Right, but that they detoured here when they realized Vicki had been bit," Tara added. "What, were they afraid there woulda been a mutiny if they'd shot her on the bus?"

"They'd have had to deal with freaked out kids, and why do that when they can push it off on strangers," Emily suggested. "But the real question is why go to the docks?"

"Duh! They've got to have a boat waiting," Tara fairly squealed. "It's a way outta this fuckin' city."

"A boat to where though?"

"You always have to be a buzz killer."

"I think I know," Aaron's voice called from the doorway. He walked into the office, stopping once he reached Thomas' desk. Leaning his hips against the desk, he turned and faced the two women. "Sean pulled up a map of the area on one of the computers. If you head straight across the river, it leads right up to the back half of Greenlawn Heights."

"Greenlawn Heights? The loop..." Emily muttered.

"Huh?"

"Greenlawn Heights, it's like a loop at the bottom of a rope or something. Three sides surrounded by the River, and there's only about a half mile stretch that's all land," she explained.

"Something that could be defended fairly easily?" Aaron asked.

"Kinda. There's a lot of warehouses along that stretch, some rail yards too, I think. I know there are some tunnels that branch out under the river, to and from the Green too," Emily said.

"So, now that we have the where figured out, what do you think the how and the why are?" Tara asked thoughtfully.


	17. Lights Out

The girl was proving much less resourceful than he'd predicted, Richard thought, watching as Natalie hurried back through the stairwell door. Which meant he'd have to try something else. Thoughtfully, he pulled out his cell phone and pressed one of the speed dial numbers. Smiling as the person on the other end identified himself. "Cholo!" he replied with such phony cheerfulness, the man on the other end was immediately suspicious.

"Richard, baby, we thought you was probably food for the stenches by now."

Forcing a laugh, he replied, "Nah, a few of those sons-of-bitches ain't enough to stop me. Just got held up a little, had a side job to do for Mr. K." Silently he patted himself on the back, throwing Kaufman's name out there was inspired, it'd show how important he was in the grand scheme of things. Maybe make Cholo a little more open to helping him.

"Is that right?" Of course, Cholo wasn't buying any of it.

"Yea, you know, supplies, women, money...more women, that sorta thing," he boasted. If he wanted to get Cholo's help, he was going to have to really make the job sound more important than it was. No one needed to know he'd actually fucked up. They'd write him off, just like Kaufman was on the verge of doing.

"So when you due back? I thoughtyou was supposed to be in a few days ago," Cholo replied, uncharacteristically showing some interest in someone else's plan. He knew the rumors floating around the city. Richard had fucked up and was now on Kaufman's shit list. That meant that even if the big man did make it back, he wouldn't be around long. Cholo's own plans were to beon **very **good terms with Kaufman when that happened, it would be the first step to getting himself set up in Fiddler's Green, the towering building that housed all the big money friends of Mr. K himself. Before losing his favored status with Mr. K, it had been rumored that Richard had been on his way to getting an apartment in the Green.

"Well that's the thing," Richard started to say, and it was like an alarm went off in Cholo's head. **Bingo, **now we're getting somewhere. "How's that armored truck thing coming along? The one that Mr. K's building for the raiding parties."

"You mean Kaufman's little pride and joy?" Cholo laughed.

"Yes, that..."

"Denbow says it'll be another week, maybe more. He's treatin' that truck like it's his goddamn baby or something. And get this, he's named the thing Dead Reckoning...now that's some funny shit ain't it."

"Denbow? What's that fucking little boy scout got to do with it?"

"Aside from designing the damn thing? Not much, just, like, you know, building the fuckin' machine," Cholo laughed again. Richard was already on his way outta the loop and he didn't even know it.

"I didn't realize he was so...involved in the project. I figured for something that important Mr. K would rely on someone like you," Richard declared. A little bit of ego stroking never hurt when you were negotiating with someone like Cholo.

"Shit, I ain't no designer."

Realizing that his ego stroke hadn't worked, Richard decided to get to the point. "Here's the deal, Mr. K needs me back to the docks in two days, and I'm gonna need a little bit of help to pull it off."

Cholo smiled again. "Where you at baby?"

"You know where Franchetti's is?"

"That little Italian place over in Old Town? Place that looks like the health department shoulda shut it down about 10 years ago?"

"Yea, that's it.."

"Wonder if that's what started this thing with the stenches, someone ate some a their food and it brought 'em back," Cholo chuckled at his own joke.

"There's some offices up on the top floor of that building, it's where we've holed up for now," Richard said, ignoring the other man's jokes.

"So what's the problem then? You're what, a couple blocks from the docks? At most. Sounds easy enough for you to handle. Besides, the sooner you haul some ass outta there the better, 'cause once they finish up rewiring the grid you ain't gonna wanna stay there anyway."

"What the fuck are you talking about Cholo?" demanded Richard, letting his anger slip. That just entertained the other man even more.

"Didn't you know about the power plant work?" he smirked into the phone, imagining the look on that pompous ass Richard's face.

"What work?"

"Like I said, they're rewiring the grid, cuttin' off the power to any non-essential areas. You're gonna be in the dark over there, if you ain't already."

"How soon?"

"If you still got your lights on, you probably'll be in the dark 'nother 12 hours or so."

"What the fuck are they doing that for?"

"Why light up all the dead parts of the city? Think the stenches need it? Fuck that. They're gonna up the voltage going through the fences across the throat, fry them fuckers even faster they try to get inside. Besides, the darkness'll help the raiding parties."

Richard's mind raced. If they were rewiring the grid, they were pretty much admitting that nobody could be left alive outside the Green. It was going to be fully sealed off from the rest of the city, accessible only by boat across the river, or else through the rail tunnels that went underneath the river. The tunnels were used by the raiders to reach their staging areas for the raiding parties, and the staging areas were gonna be heavily guarded too. If he didn't make that boat in two days, he wouldn't be making it back to the Green at all.

"Richard baby, you still there?"

"Yea, I'm here. Can you keep me posted, let me know what's going on? If the truck's gonna be done sooner than you thought?"

"Yea, sure. Whatever you need," Cholo said.

The phone disconnected before Richard could ask for anything more. He stared at it in his hand for a moment before turning for the stairwell door. There were new plans to be made, and he'd have to change Natalie's orders to accommodate them. Lost in his planning, he never noticed Sean moving out of the shadows created by one of the ventilation shafts on the roof. He'd only heard one side of the conversation, but wasn't it interesting that Richard seemed to have a working cell phone, and contact with other survivors that none of them had known about.

As Richard hurried down the steps, he started re-working his action plan. First thing on the list was locating the bus driver. He was going to prove invaluable to the success of his plan. After that, Natalie was going to have to get her new orders. Right now, it would only be himself, the driver, and the women to leave this place. Time was too short to mess with the others, the soldiers would have to go, the rest would just roll over after they were out of the picture.

He located Allen in the security office, all alone but for Tara who was stretched out as usual on the couch. Time to turn on the charm, he thought to himself. "All alone in here?" he asked, infusing his voice with as much cheer as he could muster. "Where's everyone else hiding out?"

"It's a big building, how the fuck are we supposed to keep track of them all? Especially when I'm stuck sitting here on my **ass** all the time," Tara replied grumpily. With all the things she'd been learning from Emily about this man, especially her suspicions that he was beating Natalie, actually being in his presence freaked her out.

"Having a bad day are we? Still pretty sore?" he asked sympathetically. He could sense some underlying tension in her voice and wondered darkly if Natalie had been telling tales about him, something that would frighten the little money maker laying before him. She'd have to be punished if that was the case, but later, much later. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to have her at anything less than 100 if he really wanted to make it out of here with all the merchandise.

"A little bit," the girl answered, refusing to meet his eyes and making a big show out of adjusting her position on the couch.

"Tell you what, Allen, why don't we get out of here and track down the others so this young lady can get some rest," he smiled jovially as he spoke. The driver climbed wearily to his feet. He wasn't fooled, Richard obviously wanted to get him alone, he just hoped it wasn't because the other man had somehow found out about what he'd told the others. If he had, there was no telling where Richard would be taking him, or what he'd do to him for that matter. With these thoughts racing through his mind, it was no wonder he was taken by surprise at Richard's first words to him once they were alone.

"We're going to be getting out of here sooner than I'd anticipated Allen. I need to know how much time you think it'll take to reach the docks off of Butler street."

"You mean with the bus?" Allen asked stupidly, still surprised that Richard wasn't killing him for betrayal or something equally bad.

"Of course with the bus, you don't think we'd go on foot with all those things out there do you?"

Looking chagrined, the driver replied, "It's only a couple blocks away, but without knowing how bad or if the streets are blocked up, I can't really say for sure. There's also the question of how many of those things are out there now swarming around the bus. We might not even be able to move it if there's enough of them."

"What the hell kind of bullshit answer is that! I'm paying you a fucking lot of money to drive that goddamn bus where I tell you to drive it, so when I ask for a time frame, I expect to get a better answer than that!" he declared frighteningly. "If the roads are blocked you can just plow through the damn cars, same for those creatures out there, just drive over them."

"Okay. I'll give you some answers," Allen declared. Then adding, "But first, you're gonna give me some." He was happy that his voice sounded much braver than he actually felt.

About an hour later, the power went out. Aaron and Emily used it as an excuse to get away from the others, going in search of flashlights, batteries, and lanterns from the department store.

"Tara said that Richard was pretty slick about turning on the charm and hustling Allen out of the office," Emily said.

"So he's gotta be planning on making a run for it with the bus."

"And leave the rest of behind no doubt," Emily added bitterly.

"Not exactly all of you," Allen's voice spoke quietly from a nearby aisle.

"Allen?" Emily asked, looking around.

"Don't stop what you're doing, I don't want anyone to realize I'm here," the driver said softly.

"Were you followed down here?" Aaron asked, pulling more batteries down from a shelf and dropping them into a duffel bag he'd grabbed up earlier.

"No, but I don't know if you were."

"What did you mean, 'not exactly all of us' were gonna be ditched?" Emily asked.

"Richard wants me to be ready to drive us out of here. He's planning on getting rid of Sean and Aaron, and then taking Emily, Tara and Natalie with him. Everyone else will be left behind."

"Which would be what, four people, five tops?" Aaron asked, ignoring the fact that Richard wanted him dead.

"Aaron! Focus! He wants you dead!" Emily cried out, shocked.

"Wanting me dead and actually pulling it off are two totally different things," he replied causally. "And we've got the upper hand here, we outnumber him, and we know roughly what he's got in mind. We'll be fine."

"But.."

"We'll be fine Emily," he insisted. "What else do you have for us Allen? Do you know why he just wants the girls?"

"Unfortunately," Allen mumbled. Aaron's hand paused in what he was doing.

"Tell us everything you know," he said coldly.

"Apparently Richard works for some guy named Kaufman. Almost as soon as things started going to hell out there, there was a group of rich men who started using their influence and sealing off Greenlawn Heights. They've got it protected on three sides by the river, all the bridges have been blocked, well, except for the drawbridge, they left that up. The land access, well, they've got high voltage electric fences stretched across it. I guess they call that area the throat, and it's about a mile wide is all, maybe a bit more or less. Anyways, there's thousands of people holed up over there now, it's almost like a real city. They've got their own Army over there to guard the throat, and teams of raiders that go out and get supplies from small, outlying towns. It's just incredible what they've managed to do in the last couple of weeks."

"You didn't answer my question," Aaron said coldly. "What's he want with the girls?" He was pretty sure he already knew the answer though.

"This Kaufman guy has been setting up bars, casinos, everything over there. He needs women to work them...and the streets," Allen answered hesitantly.

"Wait wait wait! He expects us to be fucking prostitutes!" Emily fairly screeched.

"Shhhh!" both men said together. "It's over my dead body he gets his hands on you Em," Aaron told her.

"Your dead body? I'll be a fucking dead, rotting corpse trying to gouge his eyes out before he gets his hands on me!" she said angrily. "I'm not gonna be anyone's fucking whore!"

"Believe me, he won't **ever **get the chance," Aaron said, dropping the bag of batteries and pulling her into his arms.


	18. Conversations in the Dark Pt 1

Sean moved quickly down the darkened stairwell in search of Aaron. It was nearly pitch black, and he was forced to feel his way along the wall, but it barely slowed him down. He couldn't shake the feeling, one that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, that he was not alone. Just as he was reaching for the doors that would lead him to the third floor and the entry to the department store, a hand snaked out of the darkness and clutched wildly at his arm. The hand was small and feminine, which pretty much narrowed down the owner's identity for him.

"Natalie," he said softly, a quickly in-drawn breath revealed he was correct.

"How..How did you know it was me?"

"Process of elimination. Tara wouldn't be hanging around in a dark stairwell with a bum ankle. Granted, she does seem to be moving around pretty good on it now though, so she could be faking it."

"But Emily.."

"Is with Aaron," he finished bluntly. "Good try, but you should realize by now that wherever one of them goes, the other almost always follows. So that brings us to the question, what are you doing lurking around in the dark?" He heard her small sigh just before she let go of his arm.

"Hoping I could find one of you alone. But I'm glad that it was you I found," she said, barely audibly.

"For what?" he asked, his voice devoid of any emotion, so she couldn't tell what he was thinking. He hoped that her last comment wasn't meant to be flattery to win him over, if it was, she should definitely rethink her job as Richard's little informant.

"I'm...scared," she whispered anxiously. "I...I need your help."

"Scared of what? The dark? I find that hard to believe," he scoffed, hoping to get her to talk faster. He began reaching for the door once more in attempt to prod her into action,and as soon as it began to squeak open, she grasped his arm again. He smiled in the dark, thinking that she may prove to be a little predictable.

"No, not the dark. Well, not entirely anyway," she told him hesitantly.

"So it's Richard then," he said impatiently. She seemed to talk more when he was abrupt, like she thought she'd lose her captive audience.

"How did you know that?" she stammered.

"Do you really need me to answer that? Or do you want to stop wasting my time and get to the point?"

"He's promised to take me with him to the safe part of the city, that he'd keep me alive as long as I do what he tells me, and I know I should just shut my mouth and do it, but..."

"But?" prodded Sean.

"I can't help but think, no matter what he promises me, I'm just going to end up like the others?"

"You mean the walking corpses or Emily and Tara?" he said on a hunch.

"Emily and Tara. I think he wants toput them to work on the streets and the club in the safe city."

"Exactly how much do you know about Richard?" Silently he processed the information she'd just presented him with. In a sick way, it made sense. Even when all that they knew was falling to pieces around them, somehow there was alwasy some sick bastard still around to take advantage of it all.

"I know he likes it doggy style..."

Sean interrupted her quickly, "Not the kind of information I'm interested in. I want to know what the hell he's told you about his plans. When he's going, who's helping him. Everything."

"I know he works for someone really important, someone who pretty much owns the safe zone." Enter the sick bastard, Sean thought.

"Mr. K I presume,"he threw out at her, testing the waters a little.

"How did you know that?" she asked in surprise.

"I overheard him talking on a cell phone up on the roof, he kept saying that name," Sean admitted. Inwardly, he questioned his own wisdom in sharing the information with her. It could all be part of Richard's plan to get them to trust her. But maybe, just maybe, she was on the level. He decided to play along a little longer, see if he could figure out what her game was.

"I thought I saw someone up there, but I wasn't sure..." she trailed off until silence filled the stairwell once again. "You must have been hiding too," she said at last, her voice somewhat accusatory.

"Of course I was hiding. My question is, why were you? I figured you were pretty well partnered up with him in all this mess."

"No. Oh God, no. Richard...well, he kinda saved my life at the Fort. And after that, I guess I just believed him when he said to do what he told me and I'd stay alive. You were there, you know what it was like," she told him.

"I know I was there, and you were, but we didn't find Richard and Allen until we reached the bus station," Sean replied.

"He said he could keep me alive, take me to a place where I wouldn't have to worry about those things anymore. I'd be safe. All I had to do was listen to what he told me," she finished sadly.

Sean started getting suspicious. She wasn't saying anything about the discrepancy in her story, when they'd met Richard, and how she came to be with their group that had escaped the Fort. "How did Richard save your life when you didn't even meet him until over a week later?"

"I met him right after I arrived at the Fort. I was there even before it was officially declared a rescue station. I was just setting there, out in front of the tent they'd put up to process the new arrivals...I don't know, I guess you could say I was sorta shell shocked, watching the wounded get hauled in...remembering what I'd seen happen to my roommate," she said slowly.

"And?" he prodded.

"He was just there. Started talking to me, telling me that the Fort wasn't going to stay safe for long but that there was someplace out there that was being made safe, even while we talked. He said if I did exactly what he told me he'd make sure I got out of there safely. And he was very straightforward about the consequences if I didn't listen to him. Richard doesn't like to beat around the bush about things you know."

"And just what exactly were those consequences?"

If he could have seen her face in the dark he would have laughed. As it was she peered towards the sound of his voice as though she could see him and he'd suddenly sprouted a couple of extra heads. "I'd die. Be torn apart by those things. And whatever was left of me when they were done, it'd come back and try to do it to someone else."

"So essentially, you're telling me you pretty much made a deal with the devil, because either way you wereafraid you were going to lose your life," he commented.

"Something like that. I was scared to death, I didn't want to become part of that hell on Earth out there. So...I do what he tells me, or I get hurt. But at least I'm not one of those things. That's what I keep telling myself anyway," she said hoarsely. She'd watch her roommate get her arm torn off by those things, and minutes later, after she'd bled out, she had become one of them. She shuddered at the memory, after witnessing that, she would have traded her soul to survive.

"Hurt how?"

"Whatever's convenient. Usually his fists, someplace where it won't show the bruises. It would never do to let the rest of you know what happens when you're not around and he's...unhappy. Other times a well-placed kick does the trick. Or else an elbow here, a choke hold there, whatever makes me beg. Sex."

"Did he rape you?" Sean asked, curious as to how she'd answer.

"No. Well, at least, not really. I...I didn't want to fuck him at first. But then, it just seemed easier to give in...it hurts a lot less that way. Physically anyway. I don't get knocked around first, it's sort of a plus. But it doesn't really stop the beatings, just delays them some."

There was something in the timbre of her voice that ate at him, deep down inside. He wanted to believe she wasn't lying to him, that she wasn't on another of Richard's little errands, but he couldn't be certain. And that thought ate at him even more. He thought hard, growing silent for several minutes.

Her voice broke through the silence, breaking him from his thoughts, "Sean?"

"I can help you," he said after another long pause.

"Really?" There was hope in her voice. Again he wished he could see her face so he could try to read her expressions, try to determine if she was stringing him along again. He was going to have to go with his gut instinct here. Of course, his gut instincts had been wrong before, the scar on his face would be a lasting reminder of that.

"Yes, but I'll need your help to do it," he told her.

"My help? What do you want me to do?"

"For starters, I need you to start at the beginning, from the minute you met Richard."

"I...I'll try," she said hesitantly. Her hesitation made Sean's next decision much easier for him.

"So start talking," he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice.

"Like I said, I met Richard almost as soon as I got to Fort Pastor. But he disappeared right after you arrived in front of the tent."

"Me?" he couldn't keep the shock out of his voice.

"Yes, you. He pointed you out, said, 'When things start heading into the shitter, follow him. He'll get you out alive.' Then he told me to do whatever I had to do to get you to take me to that bus garage. I got the impression that he knew more about what was going on then what he was telling me, but that could be wishful thinking on my part."

"He said that I could get you out alive?" Sean asked, still surprised. How in the hell would a total stranger have any idea what he was capable of? It completely boggled his mind. Unless of course, there was something to what she'd said about Richard knowing more about this whole catastrophe than he let on. He was willing to lay odds that the information he knew had absolutely nothing to do with the actual disease that caused all those dead people to come back to life and kill though.

"Yes," she replied,bringing him out of his musings.

"So where was he at? All that time. It took us better than a week to reach that damn bus station."

"All he'd tell me was 'a safe place.' But he'd never come right out and say where."

"Greenlawn Heights?"

"Right. He's never come right out and said so, not to me at least, but I heard him talking on that phone. It came up a time or two. Actually, he always calls it 'The Green.' I guess I just assumed that's what it was."

"So why that elaborate story about me killing off all those people who died after we fled the Fort?"

"He told me to do it. He doesn't trust you or that other soldier that much, thought you might give him a hard time about what he's got planned. And...he said it just wouldn't do to have the others find out that he was the one who opened that door...when Marcus died..."

"When he was torn to shreds you mean?" he demanded coldly. "Why the fuck would he let them in there? We were safe, we could have lasted there for weeks, long enough for help to arrive."

"He said he had a schedule to keep," she whispered. Her voice sounded like she was fighting back tears, but that could just mean that she was one hell of a little actress he thought bitterly.

"And just what exactly is that?"

"I don't know for certain.."

"Of course not, Richard wouldn't want you to ruin his plans."

"You didn't let me finish," she said angrily. Sean smiled in the darkness. Anger was good, powerful. Some people tended to let it take control of them, allowed it to loosen their tongues a little. "I said that I don't know for certain what he has planned, what kind of time table he's working on, but I know it's got something to do with that drama queen lounging up in the security office and that bitch off fuckin' your pal right now."

"I would be careful that 'that bitch' doesn't hear you talk about her that way, at least if I was in your shoes. Something tells me she could kick your ass without even trying much."

"Hardly."

"But then, you've already admitted what your little friend has planned for our girls," he said, condescendingly. "And I highly doubt that either of them are just going to roll over and do what he wants."

She chose to ignore his sarcasm. "From what I gather, this Mr. K guy is setting up shop in Greenlawn, a bar, casino type gambling andall that kind of shit thing. And he'll do whatever it takes to get girls to work the place, anything."

"Hey, you lost most of your loved ones to the walking dead so come on down and gamble, is that gonna be his big draw?"

"A little bit. But you left out another big moneymaking segment."

"Whores. He wants to turn you all into whores."

"Not me," she said quickly, almost too quickly. "But the others, yes, absolutely."

"I see. So it's a 'feeling down, why not go fuck one of my sex slaves and while you're at it blow all your money gambling' kind of marketing plan. Brilliant. Especially when money isn't really worth the paper it's printed on anymore."

"Maybe not here, but in the city it is."

"So are you really telling me everything? Or is this all just a big scam, courtesy of Richard," he mused.

"I swear I'm telling you the truth," she hastily responded.

"Okay. Let's say I believe you. Are you willing to do a little bit of work for me?"

"Whatever you need. I'm behind you, like 150 percent."

"Yea, I thought you might say that. So, that being said, here's what I want you to do."

As she scurried away, back up the stairs in search of Richard, Sean finally located Aaron and Emily. Allen was long gone, and they huddled in a quiet corner of the sporting department, a couple of large battery powered lamps lighting up a good portion of the store around them.

"I think I've got a plan to get us outta here," he said.


	19. Conversation in the Light

"_Justin, you know I didn't plan on having to leave you alone like this, but these things sometimes happen."_

"_You can't leave Mom," he pled, bawling like a baby._

"_It's just for a few days, Grandma will be here with you the whole time. Daddy and I will be home by Saturday, I promise. Now, try to be a big boy, your almost an adult after all."_

"_I don't want you to go, what if you don't come back," he whined._

"_You have to be brave Justin. Can you be brave for me?"_

_He shook his head no, clutching his favorite teddy bear to his chest. "You won't come back, I know it. You're both gonna die!"_

"_Justin, don't talk back to your Mother like that," his Grandmother's voice said from behind him. He turned to look at her, and his heart stopped. The rotting corpse that stood in front of him, dressed in the rags in what had been his Grandmother's favorite dress couldn't possibly be his Grandma, and that would mean it had already started. "What are you staring at Justin?" the creature demanded in his Grandmother's voice once more. He whimpered, backing away until he backed into his mother._

"_Justin! Answer your Grandmother!" his mother said. He spun around and looked at her face, wanting to ask her why she didn't see the same creature he saw. But she was just another rotten corpse, like his Grandmother. "Aw, what's wrong Justin, you look like you've seen a ghost," she said, smiling a ghastly smile. He screamed, bolting for the door into the dining room. But there was all his family, rotting corpses, seated around the table, calling out to him. Even Jesse and Jamie were there._

"_Justin. Join us Justin. We're just having a little dinner, hopefully you can be the main course," the corpses all chanted. All except for Jesse and Jamie. Somehow they stood before him, their flesh falling in shreds from their little faces. They spoke together._

"_Why did you let us die Justin? You could have saved us. Now, you have to become one of us."_

_He screamed again as the lights suddenly went out and he could feel dozens of hands tearing at him all over, mouths biting, trying desperately to devour him._

With a start, Justin came awake, looking frantically at his surroundings. The twins were playing around in the cubicles, searching through desk drawers for things to break or play with. As his heart beat slowed, the teenager realized it had all been just a bad dream, probably brought on by the fear of the impending night. He sighed, leaning back against the wall and watching the sunlight come streaming through the windows above him. It was mid-afternoon yet, still plenty hours of daylight left. The others would be back soon from the department store with the flashlights, so he tried to convince himself that there was no reason to fear the coming darkness. He felt ashamed of himself for being afraid, not even the twins seemed frightened, giggling as they found something in a desk drawer that amused them. With his thoughts focused in that direction, he was ill prepared for the voice that spoke from the shadows nearby.

"They don't really care if you and those kids there live or die, you know. To them, you're all expendable."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, startled. He rose to his feet, meeting Richard's eyes as the man came out of the shadows.

"The others, Sean, Aaron, Emily...all the rest of them. They'd leave you all to die if it helped them to survive."

"But..That..That's crazy! Emily, she promised my Mom she'd help me look after the twins," the youth protested.

"Because she would have said anything to a dying woman. People always make promises to the dying, just to ease their own conscious. They rarely mean them."

"You're lying!"

"Are you sure of that?" Richard taunted. "The very lives of you and your little cousins could all depend on whether or not you make the right decisions. Trust the right people."

"And you're supposed to be the 'right people' for me to trust, is that it?" the boy demanded.

"You could do worse."

"Yea, well, all I know is, my Mom was fine until we met up with you. Then you started pushing for us to leave, even though we were safe at the bus station. Next thing we know, those things are swarming and you got your wish, we were on the bus. Just like **you **wanted. I'd say I have a lot more reason to trust someone who makes promises to my Mom over someone who got her killed."

"I didn't kill your mother Justin, those creatures did. They broke into the bus station, and sooner or later they're going to get in here. They'll kill those two kids and yourself, just like they killed your Mom. Unless we do something about it. We have to make our escape while we can."

"How did those things get in the garage?"

"How should I know? They must have found a weak spot."

"After all those weeks?"

"They haven't impressed me with having much intelligence, I'm sure it was just blind luck on their part."

"Or someone let them in."

"That would have been suicide. Do I look like I want to die?"

"No," the teen admitted gruffly.

"I can be the best friend you've got around here," Richard said cautiously, trying to choose the best words to convince the teen to help him. "I know where there's a safe place, safer than this building, with lots of other people around. People with guns who can keep you and those two kids alive and safe. It's almost like a real city, with all the benefits and almost none of the consequences."

"What do mean? All the benefits and almost none of the consequences?"

"There's a club there with everything a young man like yourself could ever dream of. Booze, women, music, drugs, gambling. Everything. And if you know the right people, with the right connections, there's no law to stop you from enjoying **all** of it. You'd pretty much have free rein with your life. No more school and teachers. No curfews. You'd be the boss of yourself." He could tell from the boy's body language that he'd made at least a little chink in his armor. If he could keep up the pressure, he was pretty sure he'd be able to sway him.

"What makes you so sure it's safe there?"

"It's protected on three sides by the river, the fourth side, they've got it set up with electric fences, they span all the way across the land, hot enough to fry anything that comes in contact with them."

"What...what about bridges? There's always bridges to places like that."

"Smart lad. There are four bridges that span across to the city, three of them have barricades in place, the other is a drawbridge that's been raised. All of them are impenetrable."

"So how are we supposed to get to this place if the bridges are blocked and there's a fence across the land?" Justin asked skeptically.

"If we can make it to the docks a few blocks from here, my boss will have a boat there to meet us. As long as we can make it there on time."

"On time. As in, 'oops, so sad, you're five minutes late, sorry you have to die now' kind of on time?"

"No, nothing that drastic," Richard scoffed. "There's always a back up plan in place."

"And what would that be?"

"Why should I tell you? You don't believe me that the others are a threat against you and the kids."

"No, I don't. But if you want me to turn my back on them, you're gonna have to be a helluva lot more specific."

Richard was impressed. For a terrified kid who'd been whimpering in his sleep a short time before, he was turning out to be a shrewd little negotiator. It would definitely pay to have someone like that on his side.

"Okay kid. I'll bite. There's another location on the far side of the river where we'll be able to gain access to the safe zone. It's kind of a rally point for people moving around out here in the war zone. There's an access door there to a secure subway tunnel that stretches beneath the river and runs right up to the city. It's the only access spot besides the river."

"Why would you call it a rally point? The only people out here are survivors like us, holed up inside buildings."

"Nah. Being barricaded inside the city isn't without its little hardships. We have to send out raiding parties to get supplies, food, clothing, medicines. Usually in the towns out-skirting the area where the populations are a little more sparse."

"Is that...is that safe ?"

"It's not without risk. But what's life other than one big risk."

"What would I have to do? To go to this safe place," Justin whispered hoarsely.

"Just be ready to do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it."

"That's it?"

"That's it. And it goes without saying that none of the others can know what I've told you."

"What about Jesse and Jamie?"

"They'll be fine, just so long as you hold up your end of our bargain. Do we have a deal?" Richard asked, thrusting his hand out towards the teen. Justin just nodded mutely. "It's customary to shake hands when coming to a verbal agreement," the older man chided.

After Richard left the office area, Jesse and Jamie came over to confront their cousin.

"What'd the scary man want?" Jesse asked without preamble. He was the more blunt of the twins.

"Nothing, he was just telling me that the others should be back with the lights soon."

Jamie looked at him inscrutably for a minute, just staring as if she could see right through him and into his mind. "You're lying," she said softly.

"No, I'm...What would make you say I'm lying?" Justin asked, surprised.

"You have a tell. You should probably never play poker, you'd lose all your money. Or your clothes. Depending on what you were betting I guess."

"What! Jamie, where are you getting these ideas?"

"Well, Tara was telling me about how sometimes people will play games like poker for money, but sometimes they'll play it for clothes and the losers actually lose the clothes off their backs..."

"Yea, I get that. **You**shouldn't know anything about stuff like that at your age though," Justin insisted, which just earned him a pair of rolled eyes from his little cousin. "And what do you know about tells?"

"Tara told me that sometimes, if you watch people enough, you can tell when they're bluffing. Some people have, like, a nervous twitch or a tic or something. Then other people, they'll do something, like, maybe tug on their ear lobe or run their hand through their hair or something dumb."

"Okay, what's my so-called 'tell?' If I really have one."

"You flare your nostrils," she laughed.

"I do what?"

"You flare your nostrils. Whenever you lie, they just, whoosh. And they're, like, totally huge and it looks like you had a really bad nose job or somethin'. I used to notice it when me and Jess were little and Aunt Vicki would baby-sit us when Mom was workin' nights and we'd stay at your house. You'd come in late all the time and then try to bluff your way past Aunt Vicki and it would never work. You **always** got busted."

"And she'd sick Dad on me," Justin said softly, smiling sadly at the memory. At the time being grounded, stuck home on the weekends cleaning the garage and working in the yard had seemed like the end of the world to him. Now he'd give just about anything to be able to hear his parents say something like, "This hurts me more than it does you," or "Someday you'll thank us for this."

"Thanks for the walk down memory lane, but you didn't answer my question," Jesse said angrily. "I'm tired of everyone treating us like we're nothin' but a couple of dumb kids. We deserve to know the truth, you don't have to protect us."

Justin was momentarily speechless. It was hard to remember he was talking to a couple of 9-year olds, not with the kind of logic they were spouting at him this afternoon. "Look, I can't say much, not yet. All I can tell you is this, we're gonna be leaving here soon and going someplace safe. I need you to trust me on this."

"What you're planning, does it involve the creep?" Jamie asked.

"Yea, it involves Richard. I don't trust him, but I don't really trust the others either."

"Emily's nice, you can trust her," Jesse said quietly.

"So's Tara," his sister added. "She talks to me like I'm a grown-up."

"Look, I know you like them, but we have to do what's best for us. We can't trust Richard, not 100 percent, but he's the only chance we have of getting out of here and someplace safe. What have the others done?"

"Emily and Tara helped barricade this place up, so it's safe," Jamie said.

"We're also trapped. What will we do when we run out of food and water? We'll slowly die, that's what. And when we die, we'll become those things and try to attack the others. Or they'll die and try to attack us. Either way, we're dead if we stay here."

"I don't want to die Justin."


	20. Conversations in the Dark Pt 2

It was a couple of hours after sundown. Tara and Emily were seated on the roof, the lanterns that had been up there ever since the infamous poker night kept the darkness more or less at bay. Tara had suggested the meeting while they'd been stumbling around using flashlights to try to come up with some kind of meal for the group.

"I think Richard's been working on Justin," Tara announced, once they were sure they had the roof to themselves.

"By 'working on' I hope you mean trying to turn him against us and not that Richard suddenly decided to play a game of priest and alter boy."

"Priest and alt...Oooh. That was bad. Even for you."

"Sorry, must be losing my touch or something," Emily said jokingly. "But you seem to be dragging your feet about why you wanted to meet up here. Thought maybe I should liven things up a bit."

"Are we ready to be serious now? Or would you like to try and make another Catholic joke? Did I tell you I'm Catholic? I really don't appreciate your humor much."

"Shit. You've got to be bullshitting me. I don't picture you as the good little Catholic school girl. Although, now that I think about it, it makes sense. I mean, the kids who are forced to sit through religion classes all day usually end up just as messed up as us public school kids...Nevermind, forget I said anything. Just go ahead and tell me the news."

"Oh, I'll get to the story, but don't think we're dropping that other thing. We are **so **totally coming back to that little generalization later. Bitch. So anyway, Jamie came to see me, and I guess Richard had a nice long talk with Justin a few hours ago."

"Did she elaborate on anything?"

"Yea. Justin's scared we're all going to starve to death here," Tara began to say.

"Gee, I wonder where he might have gotten that idea?" Emily asked sarcastically. "Was this before or after he had dinner? 'Cause I admit that that was pretty bad."

"Are you going to keep interrupting me with your so-called jokes or were you actually planning on being serious and listening at some point?"

"Sorry. Continue. Please. I'll keep my mouth shut. Promise."

"Okay. And stop with those monosyllabic answers, it's kind of annoying too. Anyways, so Richard gave him all these little ideas about how we're going to run outta food and starve to death, and that you and your little soldier boys already know this and are plannin' on feeding the kids to the zombies to aid your escape."

"He said what! And Justin bought into all that bullshit?" Emily demanded angrily. Tara decided not to criticize her for butting in again, even though she had promised to keep her mouth shut. Instead, she'd add it to the list of things they'd talk about later, like the whole religion mess. Besides, she'd probably be a little pissed off too if she'd just found out that the kid whose Mom she'd promised to keep alive at any costs was getting ready to sell her out to the asshole of the year.

"I guess maybe Richard was a little more convincing than you. About being interested in his well-being and caring about what happens to him and the kids and all. Jesus, when was the last time you even talked to Justin? Right after his Mom died and ate Thomas or what?"

"So I've been a little remiss in that department, shoot me. Jesse and I talk, almost all the time, doesn't that count for anything?"

"Right. You spare him a few minutes here and there. When you aren't off in a dark corner fucking Aaron,I mean."

"Why is it that every conversation we have, you've got to throw something about my relationship with Aaron in my face? Are you that jealous?"

"Yes actually. Matthew still isn't showing much interest, and I'm totally not into that little mouse Justin, even though I **know** you think I should be. So if you've got any advice abut how to snag Matthew I would **love** to hear it."

Emily scrubbed her hands wearily across her face before massaging her temples a little. She took adeep breath, hoping it wouldn't come out a scream when she released it. "How about we worry about all that **later** and focus on what the little girl told you."

"Fine. But the little girl has a name you know."

"Yes, I'm aware her name's Jamie. Don't try to guilt trip me here. I care about those kids too, no matter how much I try not to let myself get attached."

"I just don't think it's very nice that you'll refer to her brother by name and not her too. And why are you afraid of getting attached to them? Does your sub-conscious tell you not too? Maybe you really would feed them to those things if it meant saving your own life."

"That is total **bullshit! **If you must know, the attachment thing, it's a two way street. I don't want to get attached to those kids in case something happens to them, and I don't want them to get attached to me in case I'm the one to die. Happy now?"

"Well, yea, I mean, I guess I never really thought about it like that..."

"Just tell me the damn story!" Emily barely kept herself from shouting.

"All right, all right! Geesh, you don't have to get an attitude about it. I guess he told Justin all about his little safe city and how great it is and of course that he's the only one who can get the kids there alive, blah blah blah, kind of shit. Oh, and that they're supposed to keep it quiet and not tell the rest of us."

"That's it?"

"Well, yea. What the fuck were you expecting? His whole plan of how to get rid of us? It's not like he's going to come out and admit that to a bunch of kids now is it? Besides, this came froma 9-year old kid, give me a break."

"He doesn't want to get rid of you girls, he wants to turn you into a couple of whores," Sean said, seating himself beside Tara, Aaron and Matthew also joining them.

"What the fuck?" Tara demanded.

"It's true Tara, I just hadn't gotten around to telling you about that part," Emily murmured.

"Were you waiting on anything in particular, or...?" the teen drawled out sarcastically.

"Actually, I was going to tell you right away. But then I kind of got distracted by the fact that Jamie came and told you the same thing Jesse told me. Only Jesse went into a lot more detail." Emily proceeded to tell them what the boy had told her, about the city, its access points, even the one located at the rally point. Obviously Richard, just like Justin, had presumed that the kids hadn't heard their conversation. And neither of them had anticipated the twins would run and tell the two people they trusted most exactly what they'd heard.

"Did he say where that 'rally point' was located? Aside from it being on the opposite side of the river from the Heights?" Aaron asked.

"No. I asked Jesse, but that's all he could remember hearing Richard say. If I were to guess, it's going to be miles from here, closer to the outskirts of town."

"If we can figure out where this rally point is, maybe the guards that they post there can help us get to the city," suggested Matthew.

"Exactly what I was thinking."

"No matter where we go, those things are gonna follow us though, won't they?" Tara asked.

"Presumably," Sean assented. "But they've gotten slower. That first day, shit, I would have sworn they moved like Olympic class sprinters, but lately...Lately, I've been watching them, and it's like a permanent case of rigor mortis has set in, they're walkers. Stiff legged, slow, we could almost run right past them."

"Not if they surround us," Tara disagreed. "If they get us surrounded, we're fucked. There's just too many of them to dodge around on foot."

"But we won't be on foot," Emily responded. "If we stick with the plan and snatch the bus, we'll be able to put enough distance between us and them that we could make it."

"We're only taking the people we trust, right?" the other girl asked. "The five of us, Barry, the twins."

"Don't forget Allen, we'll need him to drive the bus," Emily interjected. "And we can't leave Justin behind. It's not his fault that Richard's playing him."

"Everyone goes," Sean declared in a quiet, determined voice. "Everyone but Richard. We'll have to eliminate him. Maybe with him gone we'll be able to get the girls into the city under this guy Kaufman's radar."

"Whose Kaufman?" Tara asked, confused.

"Kaufman is the man that Richard's been working for. I've heard Richard talking to him on a cell phone. Natalie confirmed it all earlier this afternoon."

"When she confronted you in the stairwell?" Emily asked.

"Wait. Cell phones, confrontations in the stairwell. Hello! When were you guys going to tell me about all this?" the teen asked, shocked. "I thought I was a part of this group, but it seems to me like you've all been keeping your little secrets."

"Don't feel too bad Tara, I didn't knowthe full storyabout this either," Matthew admitted. "So I think the three of you have some serious explaining to do to both of us."

Sean cleared his throat. "I guess I should be the one to do the talking, since there's probably a few things that none of you know. To start with, I guess it's pretty obvious that I've been spying on Richard. He's got a cell phone, and he's been talking to a couple different people whenever he thinks he's alone. One of them's named Kaufman. If I were a betting man, I'd say he's the one who's running everything inside the safe zone. The other one is called Cholo, and from the way I got the impression Richard was kissing his ass, he's gotta be in pretty tight with Kaufman."

"This tells us pretty much nothing," commented Matthew. "Except that maybe we gave up on the phones too early."

"Nah. I've tried the land lines, they're still dead," Sean admitted.

"What about a cell phone though?" Aaron asked.

"And just who exactly are we supposed to call?" scoffed Emily. "Face it, the only people who have working phones right now are the people living in that safe zone. Now, I don't know about any of you, but I don't know anyone who's alive there."

"She probably has a point," Matthew agreed. "So let's here the rest of your intel."

Sean smiled. "Intel. You're starting to talk like a regular soldier." His comment made the medic shift uncomfortably, which only brought a bigger smile to the Lieutenant's face. He must have touched a nerve there. "All right then. It seems like Natalie and Allen have been working with Richard pretty much all along. Allen confessed to Aaron, Matthewand I that he was offered a pretty hefty sum of money to drive that bus wherever Richard directed him. The snag was, they hadn't planned on someone on board the bus having been bit."

"The reason they stopped," Tara said.

"Partially. It was a good way to ditch the soon to be deadish woman, and since there were survivors here see if he couldn't load up some younger ones to take back to his boss."

"Why would Allen confess? That's the part I don't understand," Tara told them.

"What good does money do you now? You gonna use it so see a movie, maybe go out to a nice restaurant?" Matthew responded.

"Apparently money is still a hot commodity in the safe zone," Aaron told them, trying to move the story forward.

"Exactly. As for Natalie, she cornered me in the stairwell earlier. I don't think she's been an entirely willing accomplice to him. But she's still playing his games, trying to get me to trust her."

"You never said what it was that makes you say she isn't a willing accomplice?" Emily asked, peering at him. "You saw the bruises too, didn't you?"

"I was in a pitch black stairwell, there wasn't a fucking chance in hell of me seeing anything," he protested. "But she did say he was beating her."

"And you believed her?" scoffed Matthew. "You just got done saying she's playing games with us."

"I saw some bruises on her neck, like she'd been choked by someone," Emily told him. "No offense, but I pretty much have Richard pegged as being the only man here likely to be found guilty of choking a woman. Unless any of you would like to contradict me on this."

"Why don't we just leave her behind with Richard?" Tara asked.

"Out of the question," Sean said coldly. "She comes with us."

He continued telling them the rest of the information he'd been able to piece together, between spying on Richard and Natalie's plea for help. Together they talked and planned for a few hours more before they finally agreed to return downstairs to the offices. They left separately, the girls first. Just before she walked through the door Emily turned to Sean.

"I hope you know what you're doing where Natalie's concerned. I don't like the thought that you're doing some of your thinking with the head in your pants rather than the one on your shoulders. I'd think long and hard about some of your motives." With that final parting shot, she disappeared into the inky depths of the stairwell.


	21. Conversations in the Dark Pt 3

"She's right you know. Natalie's beautiful, but she's not worth risking your life over," Aaron commented.

Sean bristled. "Not that you wouldn't agree with whatever your little piece of ass said. Isn't that right Sarge? She lets you play hide the sausage with her, so you'll say whatever she wants you to say."

"You know that's not true LT."

"Fireworks!" Matthew called out, drawing their attention away from their argument. Off in the distance, there were indeed fireworks that could vaguely be seen, lighting up the night sky.

"What the hell?" murmured Aaron, shocked by the sight.

"Little early for the Fourth aren't they?" the medic commented, looking towards the others. All three stared up at the sky, confusion written all over their faces.

"Those aren't in the city limits, I'd guess maybe ten, fifteen clicks down the road tops," Sean said, walking closer to the edge of the roof, leaving the protective circle of light the lanterns offered. He reached for the binoculars that were always on the roof as he went, silently wishing they were outfitted with Night Vision. It still brought the fireworks into closer view as they methodically went up in the sky.

"I think you're right. Matthew, you're the local, any idea what's over in that direction?" Aaron asked, joining his former superior and taking the binoculars when they were offered to him. "Matthew?"

"I think it's a little town called Mentor. Not much more than a couple stoplight kind of town, little grocery store, post office, that's about it."

"Raiding parties," Sean said suddenly. "Shit, it makes sense now."

"I'm glad something makes sense, 'cause you sure as hell ain't LT," grumbled Aaron.

"The other day, when I was up here spying on Richard, he was talking to that Cholo guy about an armored truck that was being built for the raiding parties," he explained, as if that would magically make them understand. Seeing the blank looks on the faces of his companions he explained further. "Don't you get it? They're sending people out into little towns like this Mentor place and raiding it for supplies! If there's a grocery store there, that means food, medicine, diapers, just about anything a city would need to survive."

"But that's suicidal! Sending people out there with those things," protested Matthew.

"No more suicidal than holing yourself up in a city with no supplies. They'd be dead of starvation before they knew it."

"Cannibalism would always be an option," Aaron said sarcastically, gesturing towards the sound of the moving corpses below. "But then, that'd just make them one of those creatures, wouldn't it?"

"Brilliant observation Sarge," Sean replied dryly. "But this is a good thing to see."

"Why? So we know that there really are others alive out there and it's not all just some kind of hallucination of Richard's," scoffed the medic.

"No, because it gives us a reference point for where their rally point might be," the officer responded. "Sarge, did you ever see any maps of the city down in that security office? Maybe the department store even?"

"No, nothing."

Matthew laughed harshly. "Guess it's time for the medical expert to save the day. Downstairs, the restaurant on the first floor, it had a whole big mural painted on the wall where the front windows should have been. It's a big map. I could be wrong, but I think it include most of the city, all the important landmarks and stuff."

"Well, let's go check it out gentlemen," Aaron said, eager to be doing something besides just standing around planning. Strategic planning wasn't his forte, executing the mission was, and standing around waiting for the plan was starting to drive him crazy. The three of them hurried down the stairs.

Inside the office of the dating service, Richard had waited about a half hour after the solders and medic had disappeared before quietly seeking out Natalie. He'd found her curled up on a sleeping bag alone in a corner. Silently, he woke her, and the two of them crept from the office, careful not to alert the others of their movements, not that that had been difficult. The kids were sound asleep, all three of them, near Allen. Allen himself was snoring so loudly it was amazing that anyone could sleep. Barry was sitting all alone in his cubicle, probably waiting for his girlfriends to reappear. He was making a big show out of playing some kind of hand held travel poker game. Everyone else was missing, probably plotting against him. Either that or they were having one hell of an orgy someplace. Richard almost smiled at the thought, still dragging Natalie behind him to the security office.

"Just where in the hell did you disappear to this afternoon?" Richard demanded just as soon as he located a single lantern on top of an empty desk. The light weakly filled the office.

"I...I played a hunch. You'd been talking of trying to cause some trouble between those soldiers, so I...I corned Sean in the stairwell. Then I gave him a big sob story about how I was afraid and wanted his help to survive. Maybe even escape," she continued to talk, filling him in on the meeting she swore up and down had been impromptu. She didn't want him to know how long she'd sat in that dark stairwell, damn close to hyperventilating in fear, until he'd finally arrived. She wasn't even sure how she'd known it was him at the time.

Richard was about to speak, but hesitated at the sound of feminine voices echoing down the hall. He quickly doused the light. In silence they listened. Tara and Emily's voices became louder and more clear as they neared the security office. They were arguing about something to do with Catholic schools and getting laid of all things. The two conspirators continued to set in the dark for a short time after the voices receded down the hall in the direction of the dating office. Then the light suddenly snapped back on, temporarily blinding Natalie as Richard began to speak.

"The others are probably suspicious of you now. Unless you're a better actress with them than I've given you credit for," Richard admonished.

"Trust me, he was practically eating out of the palm of my hand by the time I'd finished with him," she boasted bravely. Mentally, she crossed her fingers that she really was a good actress. She hadn't been anywhere near convinced that Sean had believed her. There hadn't been so much as a change in his vocal inflections when she'd told him her story to reveal what he'd been thinking. Except for when she'd admitted that Richard liked to smack her around a little. There'd definitely been anger in his voice than.

"We'll just have to wait and see than, now won't we? That's why I had a little chat with the kid this afternoon, to buy us a little insurance policy."

"I don't get it. Why would you want to involve him?" Natalie asked, genuinely confused. "He's just a scared kid. There's no way of telling whether or not he's going to freeze up when you need him."

"The only thing I need from him is to keep those little brats in line. The others won't do anything to put them in harms way, and as long as I've got control of the boy, I control everything."

"And just what exactly do you have in mind?" Natalie asked. She was surprised at herself, it was very rare for her to ever question anything he did. She'd learned quickly that it was the fastest way to ask for trouble.

"Feeling brave tonight are we?" he asked menacingly.

"No," she whispered softly. "I just think I have a right to know what you're planning. I'm helping you, I've done nothing but what you've asked of me...all along.."

"Having private chats with the enemy wasn't something I told you to do," he replied, not even bothering to hide the anger in his voice. "And I can't really share my plans with someone who goes off on her own little initiative like that. You could have ruined everything you know."

"But I didn't," she protested hoarsely, the anger in his voice sending a shiver of fear down her back. "And I swear to you, from this point on I will only do exactly what you ask of me. The only reason I did what I did, talking to Sean like that...I thought you'd be proud of me for taking advantage of a situation. Please, please, tell me what's going to happen," she begged. She knew almost instinctively when he decided to comply, it was written all over his face. He liked it when she begged, it turned him on. The sick fuck. Sure, she'd get the information she wanted, but it was going to come at a price. The thought of fucking him yet again raised the bile in her stomach, and she desperately prayed she wouldn't puke.

"Oh, I'll tell you. And then you're going to use your new found friendship with Scarface to help our plans. I can't control what you've done, but I will use it." He reached out, roughly grasping the nape of her neck and tugging her closer. She let out a whimper of pain that made him smile. Quietly, he began to speak.

Later, long after everyone had made their way back to the dating office, Natalie crawled towards where Sean lay, tossing and turning atop a sleeping bag. Her side ached where Richard had managed to get an unusually strong punch in, enough to make her think that maybe he'd busted a rib this time. She lay down beside Sean, face to face, and reached out to nudge him awake. Before her hand even made contact, his eyes opened. She moved a finger to her lips, indicating him to be quiet, before motioning to him to follow her. Silently, they crept from the office, the darkness of the hallway stood in stark contrast to the dating office, which was still lit up brightly by battery powered lanterns placed all over. Sean produced a small flashlight, pausing a short distance down the hall from the dating service.

"What's going on Nat?"

"Not here, up on the roof, it's more private there," she whispered, reaching out to grasp his hand, pulling him into motion.

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

"Please, he can't know that we're together, it'd ruin everything," she said softly, still tugging at his hand.

"This had better be worth it."

"It is, you'll just have to trust me on it."

He allowed her to lead him towards the stair once again. Trust her, she'd said. Did she really think that was possible, he thought. Or was this all just one big game to her? Playing him and Richard against each other. He didn't doubt for a second that that's what was happening here. It didn't matter that he was attracted to her, despite what Aaron and Emily thought. He couldn't risk the lives of the rest of them just to get laid. At least, he was pretty sure he wouldn't.

It didn't take long for Natalie to start talking once they stepped out onto the roof. She turned on the water works, sobbing about how Richard was going to use the children to control the rest of them. He let her keep talking, noticing that, although on the surface she seemed to be telling him a lot, she was actually just going around in circles. Most of what she said, she'd already told him earlier that day in the stairwell, it was just a slightly different variation now.

"Shhh. It'll be okay," he said, pulling her into the circle of his arms. She continued to sniffle against his chest, and he felt chagrined to realize that as much as he didn't want it to bother him, it did. He wanted her to be honest with him.

"How. If he uses the kids, there's just no way for us to stop him," she hiccuped into his chest, making her voice sound slightly muffled.

"We'll just have to make a point of keeping him away from the kids," he said. It was the truth, at least, to an extent. For the plan he and the others had concocted, while looking at the mural map in the restaurant, to succeed they were all going to have to assume a little risk.

"Do you know what you're going to do yet?" she asked. For a moment, all pretense of fear had left her voice. As if realizing her error, she sniffed hastily and buried her face against his chest again so she'd be able to avoid his eyes.

"Yea, I've got a plan. We'll let Richard take us into the city, it'd be stupid not to, and it'll keep the kids out of harms way. Once we're there, I'll try to slip you away from him. I'd imagine there's enough people left in that city where we can just disappear and hide out. The others will just have to take care of themselves," he said, hugging her more tightly against him.

"You really mean it? You'll take me away from Richard and keep me safe?" she asked, surprised. This time, he was the one who held her head against his chest, not wanting to meet her eyes.

"Of course. We're a team here, aren't we?" He threw the words out at her, like it was a test. When she stiffened up against him, fighting to look up into his face, he knew he was being played. The woman obviously had some strong self-preservation instincts. And now, the question became, did Richard realize he was being played too?Was he factoring that into whatever information he gave to her? Sean's mind whirled at the possibilities as he continued to hold her.


	22. Confrontation

A/N: Warning, extensive use of character thoughts and flashbacks will abound in this chapter.

"You know what I used to wonder about?" Tara asked. It was early morning and the group had all uncharacteristically gathered together for breakfast after creeping back from all corners of the building during the night. When nobody responded to her question, she continued talking. "How is it that deranged killers in movies always knew how to do everything?"

Most of the rest of the refugees in the breakroom just stared at her in silence. "What? You never thought about things like that?" she asked innocently.

"Why...What... You really spend a lot of time pondering stuff like that?" Emily asked at last.

"Well..yeah. I mean, think about it. That Michael Myers guy from the Halloween movies. Okay, they locked him up when he was just a kid. You know what that means? When everyone else was taking driver's ed, he was in the psycho ward, so how'd he know how to drive when he stole those cars and stuff in all the movies? Sure, if it was an automatic, I guess it's not **that **hard to figure out, but what if it was a stick shift? It took me **forever** to get the hang of that, so how would some crazy psycho figure it out? And what about Friday the 13th? Don't you think by the third or fourth time all the camp counselors got sliced and diced **someone **would have realized that camping there was a bad idea?"

"Seriously, you really think about stuff like that?" Emily said doubtfully.

"Sure. Why not? Can you honestly tell me that you've never wondered about stuff like that?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. I've never wanted to know where Michael Myers learned to drive. He's a **fictional character**, in a **movie**. Same thing with the turbo slut camp counselors in the Friday movies. **Not **real. Reality usually gets suspended in movies, in case you hadn't noticed."

While the two of them debated fact and fiction in the movies, Natalie tuned them out and lost herself in thoughts of her own problems.

'_Shit. What the hell happened last night. One minute I'm trying to get the upperhand on Richard the next I'm waking up naked, with Sean's arms wrapped around me. What the fuck did he do to me? Was it the wine that we'd found up there? Did the sonuvabitch drug me! But that's impossible, he can't possibly suspect me of anything. Maybe he was afraid I'd turn him down, which I would have. He was drinking outta the same bottle though, it couldn't have been drugs. So what happened then? And how will Iever make Richard understand. WillI even have to? God, if there was ever I time I wished I could see into the future, it's now.'_

She glanced around the room quickly, but most of them weren't paying her any attention, too entertained by another of Emily and Tara's arguments to notice her. All except Richard, he looked at her knowingly, the only one to suspect what had happened last night, or so she thought. Across the room, half hidden behind the warring duo, Sean's gaze may have appeared to follow the two arguing, but his eyes were all on Natalie. He'd learned a lot about her the night before.

'_She's beautiful, but lethal. My very own little Black Widow. She's a true actress, I can't believe I didn't see it sooner. She doesn't give a damn about me, much less those kids. Not even Richard scares her I bet. The only thing she fears, are those creatures on the street. God, if there was ever a time I needed to see into the future, it's now. I wish I knew what was going on in that devious little mind of hers. But even if I could, would I want to see._'

Sean looked away, down at the table as the realization hit him. He wanted her to give a damn. About him, about the others. There was no reason they couldn't all live to reach this walled in city Richard, in all his secrecy, had more or less dangled in front of them all like the proverbial carrot.

Aaron looked with concern at Sean's face, the flicker of pain, uncertainty that flashed across it as he stared at the food before him. He glanced over at the source of his former Lieutenant's pain. The bitch. Looking up slightly, he caught Emily's eye and gave her a barely perceptible nod. They'd worked it all out the night before, after Natalie had lead Sean away.

"_Emily, they're gone," Aaron whispered softly into her ear. Her eyes opened in a flash._

"_I know, I heard them too."_

"_Come with me," he insisted, gently tugging her to her feet._

"_Where?"_

"_Trust me."_

_She followed him in silence, not towards the roof as she'd expected, but into the security office. Once inside, he turned on a lantern._

"_What are we doing in here?" she asked, squinting as she was momentarily blinded by the light._

"_Spying."_

"_How? We don't even know where they're at, and hello, the power's off so those surveillance cams don't work either!"_

"_They're on the roof, it's where we all wander to when we want to be alone."_

"_Not always," she argued, thinking of their little love nest in the sporting department downstairs. Something in her voice betrayed what she was thinking and he smiled._

"_Okay, I'll give you that one, but that's us, not the rest of the group. Have a little faith," he said, turning and moving towards the locker room. "Bring the lamp," he called._

"_Bring the lamp," she mimicked, smiling as she moved to do just that. Inside the locker room, Aaron opened up the locker that had been Thomas' and pulled out some tools._

"_What've you got in mind?" she asked._

"_Sean told me about this vent, it's his favorite way of getting up onto the roof without being detected."_

"_Wouldn't the stairs be easier?"_

"_Not if you don't want to be seen. He can move pretty silently, but that steel door still makes plenty of noise no matter how carefully you open it."_

_Aaron made quick work of the vent, opening it up and setting the grate aside. "You ready for this?"_

"_Crawling through dirty ventilation shafts to spy on people, in the middle of the night, in a city crawling with walking dead corpses. You sure know how to show a girl a good time."_

"_Next time I'll let you make the reservations," he quipped, handing her a small flashlight. "Now, just stay behind me, and be ready to shut the flashlight off when I give you the signal."_

"_Let me add 'in total darkness' to the list of how you plan on showing me a good time."_

"_Normally you don't complain when I sneak you off to dark places," he laughed as he climbed inside the vent._

"_Normally those dark places are much roomier and more comfortable," she grumbled, following him closely._

It was hard to determine how long they'd huddled there on the roof, listening the Natalie's tale about Richard and the children, Sean's reassurances that he'd help her. When their clothes had started to come off, the two of them returned to the security office, deciding there wouldn't be anything else for them to hear.

"_Tell me he wasn't just getting naked up there with Pandora," Emily demanded, almost as soon as Aaron emerged from the vent. He was quiet for a moment, putting the grate back in place first, before he turned to face her._

"_Pandora? Very appropriate. He's just playing her, the same as she's trying to do to him," he replied, sounding none too convinced himself._

"_So what's her game? She's definitely not the frightened female she makes herself out to be."_

"_The only time she pretends to be frightened is when she gets him alone."_

"_You're right! I hadn't even thought about it. Jesus. And she thinks he doesn't notice that?"_

"_Sean told me that she's playing some kind of game, like she's the poor helpless female to Richard's super-villain."_

"_Nice analogy."_

_He grinned. "Sean told me he suspected she'd approach him tonight, when she thought we'd all be asleep."_

"_Which is why you were still awake."_

"_We were both waiting for her to make a move. You want to tell me what you were still up for?"_

"_As odd as it may seem, I couldn't sleep."_

"_Not so odd really," he said, brushing her hair back from her face. _

"_So what else did Sean tell you?"_

"Aaron, you need to bring your little girlfriend here back to reality before I do some serious ass-kicking," Tara's voice cut through his reminiscing.

'Wha..What?" he asked, totally at a loss for what had just transpired.

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't hear what she said to me."

"Tara, you're just over-reacting," Emily said quietly. "I didn't mean it that way."

"You just said I was some kind of fucking nutcase!"

"I did not!"

There was the sound of a pistol cocking, then another, before a voice spoke over the din. "I think that that's just about enough of that. Play time's over children. Time to get down to business," Richard said. He had his arm wrapped around Jesse's throat, across the room stood Justin, with a similar hold on Jamie. Both men held pistols which were pressed against the children's' heads. Justin looked like he was going to be sick.

"Now, I have a deadline to keep. That means, the bus is leaving. Anyone who wants to live, to go back to a normal city and a normal life, come quietly with us now. Anyone who wants to resist, well, the lives of these kids will be on your conscious. Your choice."

"And what if we were to say, fuck you?" Matthew asked belligerently.

"Then I shoot you first."

"I don't think so," Sean said quietly, so quiet they almost didn't hear him.

"Don't test my patience, it'll be a pleasure for me to kill you."

"So do it. Shoot me. And in the time it takes you to aim and shoot, I'm willing to bet that there's at least three people in this room who will drop your ass. Are you willing to take that chance."

Richard smiled. "Natalie darling, now's the time to use that little gift I gave you this morning." She stood, pulling a pistol out from where it had been tucked in the waistband of her pants. It was time for the moment of truth, which side would she choose. She pointed her weapon towards Emily.

"Justin, be a good boy and cover our friend the medic," Richard ordered. "Allen, cover our little Sergeant. What do you think of your odds now Lieutenant? It's going to feel good to watch you die!" he nearly shouted the last, squeezing the trigger.

Nothing happened. He squeezed it again, looking down in astonishment at the weapon. Its safety was clearly off. Natalie answered the question that was written all over his face.

"I'm sorry Richard, I had to do it. When you made your call to the city this morning I, uh, replaced your pistol with one Sean gave me. It looks perfect doesn't it, full load, safety off. You'd've really had to look to find out that the firing pin is missing."

"You **Bitch!**" he snarled, lunging towards her. He was brought up short by a short, hard jab to his windpipe,executed by Barry of all people. He snatched the useless weapon out of the older man's grasp while he was bent over, stunned andgasping for air.

"It's like you said Richard, back at the Fort, stick with him, he'll keep you alive until the end," Natalie told him, gesturing towards Sean.

"Now, I think we need to have a little chat, someplace real quiet-like," Sean said, pulling Richard to his feet. About boats and safe cities. How you picked me out of the crowd to get your little whore girlfriend to the bus garage. What exactly it is you know about me."

"Sean? What are you saying?" the girl in question asked, shocked at his calling her a whore.

"Tara, Em," he said. Tara snaked a hand out, grasping hold of Natalie's hair and yanking it back hard. Caught off guard, she let out a shriek of pain, distracted long enough for Emily to wrestle the gun from her grasp. Just that quick Tara relaxed her grip, setting the other woman free.

"I knew right from the start you were using me Natalie. I just figured I'd use it to our advantage," Sean said softly, not meeting her eyes. He tightened his grip on Richard's arms, pausing as Aaron joined him. Together, they each grasped hold of one of the prisoner'sarms.

"You didn't really think you were that good of an actress did you?" the teen asked her. "Bet you didn't realize we were on to you. And me and Emily, we're pretty damn good at that whole acting thing, if I do say so myself." She smirked, high-fiving Emily.

Natalie was silent, refusing toreplyas she watched Aaron and Sean push Richard from the room. She looked at her watch, not quite three hours left to meet up with the boat. They'd better get their answers from him soon, otherwise, they'd never be leaving this place. All her dreams of being safe at the Green were disappearing right before her eyes. It was time for a new plan.


	23. Jekyll & Hyde Interrogation

Tara stood outside the security office with her ear pressed up against the door. It'd been more than half an hour since Sean and Aaron had disappeared inside with their prisoner, and she'd been standing there almost as long, trying to hear what was happening. So far all she'd been able to make out was the sound of muffled voices and something that sounded an awful lot like a fist striking a ripe melon. Apparently Richard was getting his ass handed to him. It was a beautiful thing to hear.

"They making any progress in there?" Matthew asked, quietly joining her vigil.

"Shit! Do you enjoy scaring the crap outta people?" she cried, whirling to face him.

"Sorry. Any news?" he prodded.

"I can't hear much of anything in there," she answered.

"So let's start with what you can hear," he suggested.

"It sounds like they're beating the crap out of him," she said with a grin. "Not that it's doing much good, otherwise they woulda been out here by now, don't ya think? But I bet they're having a good time." Matthew just nodded, ignoring her chatter and remaining silent as he reached for the door knob.

"Wait, you're just gonna goand walk right in there?" she demanded.

"That's the plan," he answered, just before he softly closed the door in her face once more.

"Why the hell can't I get away with shit like that," she muttered, pressing her ear back up against the door instead.

Inside the room, Matthew took in the sight before him. Richard was seated, bound to a chair with his back facing the door, his interrogators stood in front of him. Flecks of blood peppered their shirts, and large drops were pooled on the floor along with what appeared to be a tooth.

"I thought you were helping Emily keep the others contained," Aaron said harshly when he caught sight of Matthew standing by the door. He didn't like the thought of her being left on her own, but, he admitted to himself he was a little biased on the subject. It still bothered him though.

"She's fine. The situation's totally under control. Besides, Barry's there to watch her back, Natalie's tied up, much the same as our little friend here. I don't think that Allen's much of a threat, he's just here to drive the bus, he don't care too much who the passengers are, just so long as they're not trying to eat him. And Justin's bawling his eyes out begging those kids for forgiveness so I figure I'm of more use here."

"We don't need his wounds dressed, so I seriously doubt that," Sean cut in.

Matthew ignored him, striding towards the three men and getting his first frontal view of Richard. Tara's assertion that they were beating the crap out of their prisoner was a serious understatement. He'd looked up momentarily when he heard the medic's voice, but then his head sagged limply, his chin practically resting on his chest. His face was beginning to swell almost beyond recognition, his eyes nothing more than slits, his nose definitely broken. Matthew could only imagine what other damage they'd inflicted, although he was more than a little certain Richard was playing up the wounded man routine, trying to lull them into a false sense of confidence. "So has he told you anything?"

"Yea, he told us to get fucked," smirked Aaron. "But he'll talk...eventually."

"Time's running out," Richard mumbled. "You'll kill us all unless you untie me now."

Sean gave him a vicious backhand. "Save it. We'll untie you when you tell us what we want to know," he ground out.

"Look, you've been working on him for over half an hour now, your method obviously isn't working," Matthew said angrily. "Why don't you admit that maybe it's time to let me try something else."

"What the fuck do you know about interrogating a prisoner?"

Matthew looked down at the ground for a moment, then met Sean's eyes. "Look, just because I'm into helping people now, that doesn't mean I've always thought that way. Give me 30 minutes alone with him, I'll get the answers you want."

Sean stared at him for a few moments, considering. "You've got 15," he said at last. "He don't give you the answers we need, I do it my way."

"Agreed."

Sean gave him one last measuring look than walked out the door, calling, "Clock's ticking."

Aaron followed him, pausing in the doorway, his mouth open as if he were about to speak. He looked thoughtful for about half a minute and then shook his head, walking through the door and closing it behind him. Out in the hall, he caught sight of Tara retreating hastily down the hall back towards the dating office. "How'd you manage that? I half expected her to come charging in there as soon as Mattie did."

"Played her ego. Told her that we really needed her to watch Emily's back, you know, help her guard the others and shit. Since Matthew pussed out and decided he wanted to play interrogator and all it wasn't too hard a sell."

Inside the office, Matthew just barely heard their voices as he moved to stand before the bound man, hunkering down so he could look him in the eyes. "Well Sunshine, looks like you and me have got some talking to do," he said quietly. He smiled slowly and the sight of it sent a shiver of fear through Richard, something the beating Sean had administered had failed to do. He'd never seen the medic this way before, it was almost like he had become someone else entirely.

Sean and Aaron found themselves on the roof, peering down at the bus in silence. Aaron was the first to speak, unable to contain his curiosity. "Think he'll be able to pull it off?"

"I should be the one asking that question, you've known him longer than I have."

"Couple weeks man, that don't make much of a difference. And from what I can tell, he's got a little Jekyll and Hyde thing going on."

"Your point is?"

"Since we've been here, he's had this whole good, wholesome, total boy next door routine going on. Concerned, the great caretaker."

"Our dear Dr. Jekyll," murmured Sean.

"But just now, downstairs..."

"Mr. Hyde I presume."

"That first day, when the whole outbreak started, when it came down to just a handful of us left out of our search and rescue team, the cold sonuvabitch downstairs...that's the guy I saw then." Aaron shook his head, looking down at the bus again, a grin on his face. "And I remember that whole goddamn time we was running, all I could think was that for a fucking medic he sure as hell was a pretty damn good shot."

Sean chuckled. "Just because he likes to play doctor doesn't mean he can't be a good shot too."

"All I'm saying is, when push comes to shove, well, there's a reason that only the two of us survived out of that whole team. He changes, right before your eyes. You gotta see that, I mean, why else would you think he'd be any better at interrogating Richard than you are?"

"You're wrong, I don't think that, not for a minute. And I seriously doubt he'll get him to talk, I just figured it'd give the rat bastard and me both a bit of a break before I get really serious."

"So you don't think he can do it then," Aaron said, answering his own question from before.

"No. And his time's just about up, so playtime is officially over. Let's get to work, we've wasted enough time already and I want to know about their whole operation inside that city before we leave here. We'll need to know what the story is behind the boat that's supposed to be meeting him down at the docks too. I also wouldn't mind knowing who the fuck that bastard really is."

"Matthew?"

"Fuck no, Richard. Matthew's on our side, that much I'm sure of. Besides, I know all about him. As a matter of fact, I bet he's down there right now trying to reason with that sonuvabitch. Looking at the clock, knowing his times almost up. Hell, he's probably talking Richard to death right now. You know as well as I do that that's not the way to get him to talk."

"Yeah. Well, normally I'd say that you're probably right. But you've never seen what Mattie's capable of."

"So let's go see what the good Doc's been able to accomplish then," Sean smirked. To his way of thinking, there wasn't a chance in hell Matthew had gotten anything out of their prisoner. Which made the sight that greeted them when they opened the door anything but what he'd expected. Richard was no longer bound to the chair, instead he lay in a ball on the floor, groaning in pain. The coppery smell of fresh blood met their nostrils, mingling with the fetid stench of vomit. Two fingers lay in a puddle of blood on the floor, not far from a bloody pair of bolt cutters. The front of Richard's pants were undone as well, and droplets of blood were liberally spread across his groin and lap. This shirt was also in tatters, bloody slashes most likely from a knife liberally covered his torso. Ironically the hand missing two fingers had been carefully bandaged.

"What the fuck!"

"Gentlemen,allow me introduce you to Colonel Richard Nichols," Matthew said, stepping out of the locker room and drying his hands. Blood splattered his uniform in places. "He would've been your CO at the Fort, Sean, if things hadn't gone all to hell. It's how he knew everything about you, why he told Natalie to stick close. And it seems his Army pay just wasn't enough for him, so he's been dealing with this Kaufman guy that controls the city for quite some time. Supplying him with weapons, ammunition, the works. He's the one who gave the early warning so they could get those barricades up around that part of the city."

"How...?"

"How'd I get him to talk? Or how'd he get them the stuff?" Matthew said, that same cold smile that had chilled Richard lighting his face.

"Either. Both," stammered Aaron, shocked by the sudden change that had come over Matthew. The 'Mr. Hyde' persona was definitely in command now, and it was worse than anything he'd ever displayed down on the streets.

"He just needed a little friendly persuasion."

"You cut his fucking fingers off!"

"Just to let him know I was serious about what else I told him I'd remove."

Looking at their prisoner, Sean finally spoke. "You were gonna cut his fuckin' cock off weren't you? Jesus man, that's fuckin' brilliant. Hell, I shoulda thought of that."

"Not my usual MO, but effective nonetheless."

"Just answer me one question," Aaron said, looking from the severed fingers to Matthew. "How in the hell did you even think of doing that to a man?"

Matthew sighed. "Just a little trick I picked up."

"Yeah? Spend a lot of time in dungeons torturing people?"

"Something like that, another lifetime ago."

"Oh cut the bullshit. You're telling me you were some kind of freak who tortured people in a past life? That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. What, you picked it up during the Crusades or something," he scoffed.

"Is this really all that important right now?" Sean asked impatiently, trying to regain the attention of the other two.

Ignoring him, Matthew addressed Aaron. "Any lifetime begins just by living it. One day, you can be some idyllic young kid, out to conquer the world. Then in a flash, you make the wrong choices and it's all gone. And your next life begins, doing things that that kid never could have imagined. Things that haunt you in your sleep... But then an opportunity comes along to leave that second life behind, a chance to start over. And you can almost convince yourself that it's possible to leave all that mental baggage behind. The start of another new lifetime. But trust me, you never really let go."

Sean started to clap his hands, applauding. It finally got the attention of the others focused on him. "Great story, really, totally heart wrenching, but can we get back to the important issues at hand? What did you find out about that city?"

Matthew nodded. "That Kaufman has himself set up in the biggest, fanciest building left in the city. Him and all his rich friends. Everyone else gets the scraps. He's putting together his own private army to patrol the entrances to the city. It's more or less protected on three sides by the river, and as of the time the bus arrived here, they were still scrambling to finish running high voltage wire across the land access to protect that part of the city. Besides the army for defense, there's also the group of raiders that Kaufman put together."

"The supply men."

"Precisely. They keep their vehicles on the far side of the river, take the underground subway back and forth to the city. They've got defenses set up along that portion of the river to keep the dead away too. At least, as good as they can and still leave it wide open to get the supply trucks in and out."

"How many men they got guarding that motor pool?"

"Probably 20 to 30 guards at any given time. The raiders are only there long enough to pick up and drop off their vehicles."

"How many people in the raiding parties?"

"Unknown. They send out a couple of big trucks to haul the supplies in, plus some smaller more maneuverable vehicles to supply arms support. And a bunch of crazies on motorcycles to supply the muscle. He also mumbled something about an armored truck, but I couldn't make any sense out of it."

"And the boat?"

"They must have lucked out there. Once they'd contained the outbreak within the city and got most of the defenses up they took stock of things. They rolled put every last car left in the city, used them to plug up the bridges and keep the corpses out, but they also found a boat or two still moored on their side of the river. Kaufman claimed them for his army and every now and then they'll be used to pick someone up from this side of the river."

"And you learned all that in 15 minutes."

"Seven actually. It took the other eight to break him."

"Nicely done. Now, let's get him tied back up, I'd say we've got some work to do."


	24. Freedom at a Price

"So that's what we know about our good buddy Richard," Sean said, relaying all the information that Matthew had learned during his interrogation to the rest of the group. "We talked it over and figure our best chance to make a clean break from here is to head for the rally point of those raiders. I don't think we can rely on a boat actually being there waiting for us at the docks, it's too much of a risk. We're gonna have to move fast down the fire escape, I'll be on point to lay down some cover fire. Allen, I wantyou to stickto me like white on rice. As soon as we hit the rooftop on the bus, I'll continue with the cover fire while you haul your fat ass into the bus and get that pig fired up. The rest of you will be moving as fast as you can down the steps and onto the bus. Emily, Aaron and Matthew, I'm relying on you to help with the fire support."

"What? You think that the rest of us can't shoot?" Barry asked rhetorically, not really expecting an answer.

"We're kind of limited on with what weapons we have, not to mention kind of limited on the ammo, we're gonna need to make every shot count. Nothing against you personally Barry, I just gotta go with the people who've proven they can handle themselves with a sidearm."

"That's it? That's your grand fucking plan?" demanded Natalie from the other end of the room, still bound to a chair.

"You were expecting what? Helicopters? Submarines maybe? How about a whole fucking brigade of Bradleys to escort us to the goddamn docks?" Sean replied sarcastically.

"Actually I was kinda holding out for Wonder Woman's invisible jet," she shot back at him.

"Touché."

"Okay, so you're really serious that you think we'll just be able to hop on that bus and ride off into the sunset, all safe and happy like?" Tara asked, ignoring the raging sarcasm floating around the room.

"Maybe not quite ride off into the sunset kind of thing, but that's the general concept. I won't guarantee the happy thing."

"So what's gonna keep those things from swarming the bus and either picking us off one at a time or trapping us inside the damn thing like a bunch of sardines? At least until they figure out how to get inside it and eat us,I mean."

"The crowds have dissipated over the last couple of weeks, it's like they know we're in here, so they left some stragglers to keep watch, but they also know that we're not the only hot meal in the neighborhood. I wouldn't be surprisedif they've wandered in the direction of the city themselves. Besides that, if we move quick enough, we oughta be able to get underway before those slow sons of bitches can even think about moving our way," Sean explained confidently.

"That's a bit of wishful thinking," Natalie whined loudly.

"Not really, the way I see it, if they look like they're going to start swarming we'll just throw some bait out to distract them," Matthew retorted.

"What the hell do you mean bait?"

"Your partner Richard for starters, he's a disposable asset now….just like you."

"You're fucking insane! You keep the fuck away from me!" she shouted, struggling wildly against the ropes.

"No, I'm just being practical," he responded blithely. "Think of it as strategic use of our assets. I hope you're not too closely attached to your fingers, you may have to lose a few before the day's over. They do like the scent of warm, fresh blood," he grinned wickedly at her.

She continued to struggle against her bindings. "Don't you touch me!" she shouted as he moved closer.

"You know, the more you struggle, the more tired you'll be when the time comes to make that little run down to the bus."

"What the fuck do you care?"

"I don't. I was just going to say how much easier it'll be to throw you off the busif you're too tired to struggle. Kind of like your pal Richard, after I got through with him I don't think he'll be putting up much of a fight either. And he's definitely gonna bleed some more before we're through."

Natalie froze as his words penetrated her mind. If he was really telling her the truth about Richard, then she was on her own to survive, there was no way she'd find an allyamong the others now. Across the room therest of themhad quieted down considerably as they listened to the exchange. The question on most of their minds was 'What the fuck happened to Matthew?' He definitely wasn't the same helpful EMT he'dbeen just the day before.

"How soon are we moving out?" Barry asked, struggling to keep from staring at the far end of the room where Matthew still stood looming over Natalie.

"Half hour tops," came Sean's brusque reply. "We're going to clean out the security office of every last bit of ammo we can find. Matthew, that gonna be enough time to prep the bait?"

Matthew nodded. "I'll have Justin help me gather up what we need down in the sporting department."

"Wait, what do you mean 'prep the bait'?" Tara asked.

"We're gonna rig a rope and pulley system, that way we can lower him down to the street and draw some of those things away from the bus if we need to," Sean explained.

"Wait, I thought you said we'd be on the bus and moving before they'd even have enough time to stumble their way over to us," argued Tara.

"Theoretically it's possible."

"Yeah, and theoretically all the stuff that happened in that DaVinci book could really have happened too, but that doesn't mean they did."

"Well no, but then, 'The DaVinci Code' is a fiction novel, this is real life."

"Well excuse me if life is imitating art in the form of a low budget zombie movie."

"Don't most of those end up happily?"

"Nota big zombie movie fan are you Sean?"

"Half an hour people, then we're finally gonna be free of this place," Aaron said, trying to cut them off mid-argument. "Is this really the time to be arguing about all this?"

Sean looked relieved at the interruption. "I want you to keep the civilians contained here until I give you the all clear to proceed to the roof. Use Barry or your girlfriend to help. I also want you to prep the weapons and be ready to divide up the weapons between the four of us," he instructed Aaron.

"That's a big affirmative L.T." Aaron replied with a grin. "As soon as we're locked and loaded I'll get everyone up on the roof."

"Take your time, there's no reason to make those kids watch whatever Matthew's got planned for Richard, they've already been through enough."

"I don't see what difference it's going to make. They're going to be down on that bus driving through those streets again and seeing those things first hand. Seems to me it can't get too much worse than that."

"Just do what I ask Aaron." With those parting words, Sean disappeared.

"Tara, keep an eye on Natalie, Barry, you watch the kids," Emily instructed, climbing to her feet. "Here, take this," she said, handing her pistol to Tara. "If she tries anything, shoot her."

"What!" yelped Natalie.

"Girl, you are just on everyone's bad side today," chuckled Barry as he walked past her.

"This is so fucking cool," Tara said, grinning as she brandished the gun in Natalie's general direction.

"It's not a toy Tara, so, uh, try **not** to shoot anyone," Emily ordered heading for the door, Aaron trailing in her wake. Outside the office Aaron spoke.

"Do you really think that was wise, giving Tara a loaded gun?"

"Well, see, that's the thing. It's not."

"Why'd you say that crap about shooting Natalie then?"

"How much you willing to bet me that Natalie won't try to escape, probably won't even speak while we're not in there."

"Smart. Let her see you put the gun in the hands of a wild child and give her license to kill in the process. I like your style."

All too quickly, the half hour prep time was over. The survivors found themselves up on the roof together for the last time. They took one last look out over the city's quiet skyline. Matthew moved towards the edge of the roof, releasing a carefully knotted rope. Richard's scream of terror rose up over the side, followed by the snarls and moans of the dead. Matthew took a swift glance over the edge, feeling satisfied at the sight of the growing mob forming beneath Richard's struggling form, their outstretched hands just barely coming into contact with his hair, pulling handfuls out as they tried to reach him. Eventually, if they were really lucky, maybe they'd get lucky and have an NBA sized zombie come along to pull him down. Otherwise, it'd be a long slow death for the man, the thought made Matthew smile as he rejoined the group.

"Everyone ready for this?" Sean asked.

"Would it matter if any of us said we weren't?" Allen replied.

"Not really. I want the shooters to check their weapons, make sure you're locked and loaded. Everyone else, let's do this."

Just like he'd described, Sean lead the charge down the fire escape, firing as the dead starting moving their way, catching the scent of warm living flesh closer than it had been in longer than they could remember. If it was possible for the dead to remember something like that. Sean continued firing, Allen stumbling along heavily behind him. The others began shooting too, as soon as they came into range. So far everything was moving like clockwork, and it looked as though they were actually going to pull it off. So of course, that's when it all went to hell.

Sean had made it down to the top of the bus, pausing briefly to wrench open the access door on its roof. Allen followed heavily behind him, stumbling down the last steps of the ladder and before hitting the roof of the bus heavily. He lost his balance, falling perilously close to the edge of the bus. Sean tried to grab him, but it was too late, one of the dead got to him first.

"Sonuvabitch!" the soldier yelled as a few more of the dead managed to grab hold of Allen and the bus driver was slowl torn to pieces, pleading pitifully for help. "We're gonna have to abort," he called to the others who were rapidly landing on the bus' roof.

"Fuck that!" screamed Tara. "I'm not goin' back in that rat trap!" She hadn't even finished speaking before she dropped through the open hatch.

"Is she fucking crazy?" Justin asked, lowering Jesse and Jamie through the door.

"She's gotta be," Barry called, still descending the ladder. Moments later the bus started up.

"There's no way she can drive this thing," Natalie whined. She'd made her way down to the bus and was methodically trying to shove her way past the others and into the bus.

"Well if you want to stay, help yourself," uttered Emily, shoving the other woman back away from the door and watching as Justin climbed through. The dead were really starting to move in towards them now; enough of them pushing on the side of the bus in their desperation to reach them that the bus was beginning to shudder beneath them. Between that and the shoving match between Natalie and Emily the bus top was becoming a dangerous place to be.

"Emily! Just let her into the damn bus already!" Aaron ordered, crouching down to try and stabilize himself as he did.

"Fine," she gritted out, stepping back slightly to let the other woman through. She half turned away to take a shot or two or six down at the zombies and that's when Natalie made her move. Taking advantage of the other woman's turned back she shoved at her hard, hoping to push her right over the side of the bus.

"Emily!" Aaron screamed, too far away to be able to do anything to save her. His terrified shout drew Sean's attention just in time. He barreled over Natalie, knocking her through the hatch with a startled yelp and snaked an arm around Emily's waist, trying to tug her back onto the bus' roof. In the process, he managed to lose his weapon over the side. From his awkward position, and a mere split second window of time things weren't looking good for Emily. Matthew managed to get close enough to grab onto the back of her shirt, tugging hard while Sean pushed. Together, their combined effort managed to bring the shaken woman firmly back onto the roof. Sean wasn't so lucky, sliding half off the bus himself. He kicked desperately at the hands that pawed him, still clinging desperately to the side of the bus. Matthew gripped his hand, calling out to the others to keep shooting.

Gunfire echoed as they tried to pick off the dead one at a time as Matthew played tug-of-war with them over Sean's body. They new the instant one of them managed to penetrate through his clothing. The desperate look on his face was replaced with one of resignation as he looked up and met his friend's eyes. "Do it," he uttered harshly to Aaron. A split second before the bullet penetrated his forehead, he let go of his grip on Matthew.

Aaron continued to fire into the crowd, not even pausing as he commanded, "Emily, get your ass in the bus and tell them to get this pig moving."

Wit a last look where Sean had fallen, Emily dropped wordlessly through the hatch. Moments later, with a grinding of gears, the bus slowly lurched into motion, plowing over the dead in its path and causing the bus to jolt from side to side, almost as if it were traveling over an extra large series of speed bumps. At last Aaron and Matthew wearily dropped through the opening as the bus slowly continued to creep along.

"Any chance of picking up some speed with this thing?" Matthew asked, moving his way to the front where Tara sat at the wheel of the bus.

"Sure, just as soon as I learn how to walk on water, I'll get right on it," she complained, driving into another small herd of zombies.

"You're doing great, just work on getting the feel of it, see if you can't shift her up a gear or two, get some speed going."

"I'm just happy I got this thing moving! You don't really expect me to know how to drive it do you."

"You're doing good, I just need you to try a little bit more. If we don't pick up some speed we're never gonna make it out of here," he said, trying to be encouraging.

"I can tell you were never a cheerleader," Tara muttered, actually bringing the ghost of a smile to his face.

In the back of the bus, tensions were a little higher. It wasn't because of the corpses stumbling after the bus. As long as the bus was still in motion, its passengers were filled with relief. But Aaron had a pretty good choke hold going on Natalie, and was threatening all manner of ways to feed her to the zombies. He wasn't taking the loss of his friend very well. Emily's subtle encouragement wasn't helping the situation any either. Barry was trying to be the voice of reason, but so far he wasn't doing to well. Fortunately, the bus' sudden stop saved him from having to at all.

"Tara, talk to me, what's going on? We need to get this thing moving," Aaron called, swiftly moving towards the front of the bus.

"Sure, just as soon as you tell me how to get the fuck through that!" she said, pointing to a mangled wreck of abandoned cars stretching out in front of them.

"Here's a thought, turn."

"No shit, Einstein. Where?"

She was right, they were setting in the middle of the fucking block, buildings and parked cars along either side of them. The zombies seemed to be appearing out of nowhere now, moving closer with their staggering, steps.

"Put her in reverse," he said tightly, peering into the side mirrors.

"You're kidding right? Please tell me you're joking?" she pled. "I can't even see out the back, and those things are coming."

"Just keep it straight, I'll talk you through it. This is gonna be our only chance, I know you can do it."

"You better be right."

"Matthew, I need you up top, see if you can weed that crowd down some," Aaron commanded.

"I'm on it," he replied, using the seats to reach the still open hatch and pulling himself out of sight.

"I should be up there too," Emily said softly from where she'd moved to stand behind Aaron.

"No."

"Two shooters can do a lot more damage."

"No."

"I'm going, so you better make this work" she told him. Leaning forward she gave him a quick kiss and then quickly making her way to the hatch and climbing out after Matthew.

The snarling from outside the bus seemed to be growing steadily louder as the dead slowly began to close ranks outside the bus. Gunfire erupted in steady and rapid fashion from the rooftop.

"Whatever you're going to do I suggest you do it now," Barry said hoarsely as he watched the hand of one of dead slowly claw it's way across the bottom of one of the windows.

"Okay Tara, I want you to move this thing in reverse, real slow and steady like. I'll tell you when to turn the wheel and which way. Okay?"

"Just do it," she gritted out, wrestling the bus into reverse.

Slowly, the bus creeped back towards the last intersection, everyone on board silently praying the side street would be clear enough to squeeze the bus through. There was a steady, wet thudding sound from the back of the bus as it methodically plowed into the zombies that continued to move mindlessly towards the smell of warm flesh. On top, Matthew and Emily held on to whatever they could find with on hand, and continued to fire with the other, trying to thin the crowd down some. At last they made a crazy turn and were once again moving forward.

"Barry, get those two down from the roof, we're in the clear now," ordered Aaron. He wanted to see Emily with his own eyes to convince himself that she really was okay still.

"You got it," Barry said, happy to have something to do that didn't involve staring out the bus window at the wreckage the city had become. From the safety of the dating office, he didn't think any of them had fully appreciated the destruction to their city. Seeing it up close and personal like this boggled his mind.

"If you wouldn't mind taking a break from thinking about your piece of ass for a few minutes, I could really use a navigator up here," Tara said, drawing Aaron's attention back to the front of the bus. "You think you can tell me where exactly I'm driving this beast?"

He heard two pairs of feet touch down on the floor behind him as Emily and Matthew dropped through the roof hatch. He breathed a mental sigh of relief that she was back inside he relative safety the bus afforded them.

"Yea, here's where I want you to go," Aaron said. He got her moving in the direction of the industrial park that filled the outer edge of the city on this side of the river. There were warehouses and fences that could be used to help provide protection for this rally point, at least that had been Sean's estimation. As they moved through the city, the crowd of walking dead seemed to thin out considerably, but whatever they passed seemed to fall into line behind them, slowly trudging after the bus.

They were about midway through the industrial park when they hit their new problem.

"It's been boarded up and gated off. How the hell do you expect me to get through that?" Tara asked, easing her foot off the accelerator a bit.

"Floor it."

"What?"

"Floor it, I want you to ram this thing right through that fence," instructed Aaron.

"Wait! What if they've got the fences electrified? Isn't that what you said they've done in the city? Why wouldn't they do it here too?"

"They've redirected the power to the other side of the river, we shouldn't have anything to worry about," Aaron insisted, hoping like hell he was right.

The bus crashed through the fence without a problem and continued moving towards the other half of the industrial park. They were met with another barricade, plywood sheets blocking most of their view to the other side.

"Do we go through?" Tara asked nervously. She didn't like the idea that they had no idea what was waiting for them on the other side.

"Do it."

Tara accelerated a little more, building up speed for the impact. As the bus crashed through the wooded barricade, her last thought was that she wished she'd gone with her gut instinct. An empty flat-bed trailer lay directly in their path, and as she jerked the wheel in a desperate attempt to swerve around it, she lost control. The bus veered sharply to the left, clipping the front of the trailer with it's right front quarter-panel, the impact just enough to send the bus over onto its side. Screams of terror filled the bus and at the last second Tara hollered, "Everyone hold on to something."

As the dust settled around the crash, the passengers on bored slowly stirred. Tara was slumped over the wheel, a small cut sending blood in a steady stream down her face. Behind her, Barry moaned as he slowly came awake, a stab of pain shooting through is left arm that was bent at a rather odd angle. He could make out the sound of Jesse and Jamie whimpering, but it seemed like it was from a far off distance. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but all that happened was yet another stab of pain shooting through his arm.

Further back in the bus, Aaron was carefully crawling towards where Emily lay sprawled against one of the big side windows.

"Is everyone okay?" Matthew called out. He was the only one on his feet, peering cautiously out of the still open roof hatch.

"We're okay," Justin called out, he was crouched between a pair of seats, an arm around either of his young cousins. "Just a little shook up I think."

"Emily?" Aaron said, gently nudging her. She groaned slightly, her eyes slowly flickering open.

"What the fuck happened?" she asked hoarsely, grimacing slightly as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Aaron thought it was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"We're good to," he called out as he started checking her over for any broken bones.

"I think my arm's busted, and Tara's out cold," reported Barry.

"Not that any of you give a damn, but I'm fine," Natalie said. "For now anyway, thanks to you assholes we're all as good as dead."

"Maybe not," Matthew said, turning to the others and smiling. "Listen carefully."

Off in the distance, but closing rapidly, you could hear the sounds of engines approaching. Definitely some motorcycles, maybe a car or two, and definitely something bigger.

"I think the cavalry's about to arrive. Let's get everyone off the bus, Emily, Aaron, if you're up to it, I want weapons ready."

Matthew lead the way, checking the immediate area around the bus for the undead, while the others except Tara made their way carefully off the bus.

"What about Tara?" Barry asked after gingerly climbing through the hatch, his broken arm cradled against his chest. "She's still out."

Matthew and Aaron's eyes met, and Aaron nodded. "Emily, let's take up some defensive positions, everyone else keep your backs to the bus and your eyes open," Aaron instructed. Matthew disappeared into the bus once more, reappearing a few minutes later with Tara in his arms.

"Justin! I need your help here," he called out.

The two of them had just managed to get her out of the bus when the first vehicles came into view, motorcycles, followed up by a jeep and something that looked like it had once been a station wagon with those cheesy wood panels on the sides.The top of the station wagon had been removed though, and what appeared to be a .50 caliber machine gun was mounted in its place. Behind those, was thebiggest, most bad ass armored truck most of them had ever seen. The motor cycles sped a fewcircles around the bus before coming to a stop in front of the survivors, the other vehicles joined them, forming a half circle around the top of the bus. A lone blonde man climbed from the jeep, just as a door opened in the side of thebig armored truck, which had been christened 'Dead Reckoning.' AHispanicman clad in a leather jacket and wearing a harpoon gun strapped to his leg alit first, followed close behind by a man with dark, greasy looking hair and a goatee. The one with the harpoon gun spoke first, calling out to the blonde.

"Hey Denbow, this is what you dragged us out here for?"

"They're people Cholo,seems to me like they could use some help," the man called Denbow replied.

"Yeah, and it seems to me that the assholes took out a big chunk of our fence. What's gonna keep all those stenches still on this side of the river from swarming the garage?"

"We'll handle it. In the meantime, let's get them loaded up."He pulled out a phone, much like the one Richard had been using back at the dating service. "Mulligan, once we get everyone loaded up, I want you to use the hook, pull the bus around and then push it over the hole."

A voice with adistinctive Irish accent came over the phone. "I think we can manage that for you Reilly."

Tara didn't wake up until she felt Dead Reckoning go into motion with a lurch. She slowly sat up, feeling her forehead gingerly, surprised to find a makeshift bandage over one eye. Looking around, she saw a couple of guys working on Barry's arm. Since no one really seemed to be paying attention to her, she slowly made her way to the front of the truck where she was met by an older man with a decidely Irish lilt to his voice.

"So you're finally awake," he said, smiling at her.

"What...what happened?" she asked, the last thing she remembered was trying to swerve around that trailer.

"Looks to me like you had a wee bit of an accident."

"No shit. So what is this thing?" she asked, looking around the cab.

"This? This is Reilly's little toy," he answered chuckling. "Have a seat," he told her, gesturing to the open seat beside him.

"No really."

"I'm telling you the God's honest truth girl."

His words brought a small smile to her face. "If you say so. How does this thing work?"

"Do you like video games?"

"Yeah, but I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"You will. Stick with me and one day, you'll be in control of her."


	25. Epilogue

Every now and then I sit back and think about all of that shit that happened, and it's hard to believe how much time has passed. Sometimes it seems like only yesterday that we left that office. But then reality intrudes. These days, everyone tends to tell time in two ways, either before the world ended or after life in the city started. Of course, for the most part, I just kind of take things as they come, one day at a time. I work on the raiding team now, and for the most part life with the stenches roaming what used to be our world has just become the status quo.

I still see Emily and Aaron around, and they're still a couple. It's kind of ironic that that dating service from hell actually brought her together with her soul mate. It just came about under really fucked up circumstances. I suppose if you're being absolutely literal about it, it wasn't really the service that matched them up, but that's still where they met so in my bookit counts. They were both raiders for awhile too, usually on the first team to go into the pharmacies. Sure, they were really good about bringing out the drugs and antibiotics that so many of the people in the city need, but they were also foreveron the lookout for condoms. I can only assume that they knew that those things have expiration dates on them, but maybe not. Anyways, their little boy is almost 2 years old now, and understandably, Emily no longer goes out on raids.

I see Justin around all the time too. After his cousins were more or less 'adopted' by some rich bitch living in the Green who'd lost her own kids to the stenches, he joined up with the raiders too. To be honest, he seemed kind of relieved not to have the burden of caring for the kids hanging over his head any longer. In a way, he still managed to keep his promise to his Mom, he made sure they got the best life possible, all things considered. Anyways, he's kind of become Cholo's pet now, following him around and doing whatever he's asked, usually in exchange for some pot, but sometimes for money. Lately Cholo's been throwing around some serious cash, which can only mean he's maganged to worm his way in good with Mr. K. Cholo calls Justin 'Mouse,' because of how quiet he tends to get. But Justin still has his crazy moments. He's the only guy I've ever seen ride a skateboard in the middle of a raid. Headphones and skateboards, they'll be the death of him one of these days.

Matthew Brubaker. He's totally become Mr. Super Soldier. Gone are the days when he gave a damn about healing people. Not long after we arrived in the city, he got himself hired into Kaufman's private Army, paid to guard the city. It took him less than a year to climb through the ranks enough to be put in charge of defenses at our staging area. He was happy to be out of the city, but even more happy to be in control of something. He's still got his mean side too, that's how the decision was made to hang some of the stenches up down by the warehouse district, wrapped in big targets no less. For better target practice is what he claims, give the army virgins some live targets to fire at, especially since they rarely come through to the electric fences over by the throat anymore. We all lost something during those long days after the dead started walking, in Matthew's case, I sometimes think it was his humanity. But at least his sense of humor's still good. It makes it easier to deal with him.

Natalie never got her wish to move into the Green. I guess any status she thought she had more or less left the building when the guys took care of Richard. He sort of got his way in the end though. The last time I saw her, she was working in Chihuahua's bar as a topless dancer, giving blowjobs in the backroom to earn some extra money, most of which ends up being thrown away on some blow. I can't really blame her, I mean, it's probably not her dream job after all. But I admit it, I'm a little biased when it comes to her. Whatever hell she lives with, I personally couldn't wish her fate on a more deserving person. Especially after what happened to Sean, he may have been a little bit of an ass, but he was still one of the good guys.

Barry was never the same after we reached the city. He tried becoming a soldier, and he actually got pretty good at handling a weapon. After a couple of months, you'd have never imagined that there was a time when an M-16 rifle didn't seem to be an extension of him. It was after the anniversary of our second year in the city that he just couldn't handle things anymore. There were some rumors about how he'd awakened one morning to find that his boyfriend had hung himself. After he'd had to put a bullet through his lover's skull to make sure he stayed dead, he apparently couldn't live with himself any longer. He stuck his own gun in his mouth and blasted the back of his head off. Suicide actually became a commonplace event within the city for a little while in those early days. At least it had out on the streets where most of the population lived in squalor. The smart ones managed to get their hands on a gun and take care of things properly. The others, well, they usually ended up as part of Chihuahua's little freak show. People will throw their money away on pretty much anything, something that hadn't changed from before. So there were stenches chained up for people to get their pictures taken with, or shoot at with paintball guns. And then there was then there was the pit, where people would bet on which stench could tear a dog or cat apart first. Whatever Chihuahua couldn't get his hands on usually got hung up in Matthew's personal shooting gallery. Welcome to life in the city.

As for me, I guess I must have proved to someone that I had some kind of aptitude for driving big machinery the day I drove that bus through the city. Or maybe it was just because Mulligan took pity on me and showed me how to handle Dead Reckoning. Either way, it got me a sweet gig driving the biggest, baddest truck on the road after he left the team. I'm just one of the boys now. They've even nicknamed me Pretty Boy, 'cause I liked to tell them that I was one of the boys and during a drunken night down at Chihuahua's, Anchor said, "You're just too pretty to be a boy." Tacky and cheesy I know, but at least I fit in.

Lately things have been changing all over the city. After enough time spent living off the scraps of the rich, there's a lot of unrest in the streets. Mulligan's started organizing people to rebel against Kaufman's rule, so it's only a matter of time before something blows up. People are disappearing off the streets and we all pretend not to notice those big crates that Cholo takes out with the trash, most of which are dripping blood through the sides. It's better for your health not to notice things like that. For my part, I fly low under most peoples radar, and I make a decent enough living on the teams to not want to risk joining Mulligan's band of misanthropes. Reilly says that the world is on the verge of change again, I just wish I knew if it was for the better.

Fin

A/N: That's it, the fat lady has officially sung. Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read and review the story. I know it's a stretch to turn Tara into Pretty Boy, but it's all about poetic license.


End file.
